Germ Theory

[00:00] We're going to talk, we got some mailbags, and it's for the under Googles.
[00:06] It's for the under Googles.
[00:07] It's a twofer.
[00:08] Okay, so it's the mailbag and under Googles.
[00:11] How am I supposed to do these jingles?
[00:12] What do we do?
[00:14] Just play one on top of the other and just call it a day.
[00:17] Yeah, or just intersperse them randomly whenever you want.
[00:20] Just go note to note.
[00:21] That'd be cool too, yeah, and interleaved.
[00:24] Oh wow, just created a whole problem for me, Joey.
[00:29] Thanks a lot.
[00:31] So don't blame Joey.
[00:33] You're going to get real good at GarageBand is what I'm hearing.
[00:36] Should we do an under Googles?
[00:44] That was the play of Super Excited.
[00:48] I told us we had to.
[00:51] He said we signed up for it.
[00:55] The mailbag.
[00:58] In the end it's going to be better and more true than Googles can give you.
[01:04] So we got a bunch here, so we'll get to the ones we have time for, because sometimes discussions
[01:11] go along.
[01:12] The first one, I think we should get this one.
[01:14] The question is, and I don't know exactly how we're going to answer this one, but it says
[01:20] without the Google machine, can you guess why the podcast is called The Undebeatables?
[01:27] I don't think the answer is on the Google machine.
[01:30] Oh.
[01:31] It's probably not.
[01:33] I'm not sure it's in my neural machine, either.
[01:36] So wait, did you say who this is from, Joey?
[01:39] This is from, I did not, this is from Andrew Preston, and he's written it before.
[01:45] Thanks Andrew for that.
[01:46] So I think I'll do the mailbag jingle now, maybe.
[01:51] Okay.
[01:52] Sure.
[01:53] Dealer's choice.
[01:54] The mailbag.
[01:55] The mailbag.
[02:01] I think I'm going to defer this question to Jason, because I believe that we stole this
[02:13] name from you, sir.
[02:15] Is that correct?
[02:16] It's definitely a fantasy name, right?
[02:19] Yeah.
[02:20] So it was the name of my fantasy basketball team, which Coalson liked so much.
[02:27] He said, we shouldn't make it, not your fantasy basketball team name, we should make it the
[02:32] podcast name.
[02:33] Yeah.
[02:34] It's such a good name.
[02:35] Because that meant I had to come up with a new fantasy basketball name.
[02:40] And you'd already nailed it.
[02:41] But I thought that was fine.
[02:43] And I think I stole the undebeatables from our friend, the dude who was a roommate of
[02:52] mine in college, Rob.
[02:56] Somehow he at some point had said like, oh man, that's undebeatable, or something like
[03:02] that.
[03:03] I don't know.
[03:04] Just joking around.
[03:05] And I was like, that's awesome.
[03:06] I'm stealing that.
[03:07] All right.
[03:08] Shout out, Rob.
[03:09] Yeah.
[03:10] Shout out, Rob.
[03:11] I'm going to push back when we named the show this because it was going to be hard to remember
[03:14] undebeatables.
[03:15] Mm-hmm.
[03:16] But you know what?
[03:17] I was like, whatever.
[03:18] I don't trust our audience.
[03:19] We have faith in our audience.
[03:20] They can learn these things.
[03:21] We're glad you listened, but we don't care that you do.
[03:22] You may be speaking for yourself.
[03:23] We love each and every one of our fans.
[03:24] What are you talking about?
[03:25] So this was, this is from The Dude.
[03:46] And I don't know where things come from in his brain, so.
[03:50] All right.
[03:55] So we've got another one here.
[03:57] This is, you know, we get a lot of these, the origin of meaning or origin of words.
[04:04] And I think this one is relevant for our times today.
[04:08] This one says, where do you think the word quarantine came from?
[04:12] Well, this one I think I've heard.
[04:16] Okay.
[04:17] Good.
[04:19] I like knowledge.
[04:20] It comes from French.
[04:22] And I believe that it was maybe during the plague, the black plague, the requisite time
[04:32] to stay in doors and away from people was 40 days.
[04:36] And so that was a quorum.
[04:37] 40 days.
[04:38] So the quorum is for 40.
[04:41] So French via Latin.
[04:43] Yeah, something like that.
[04:45] Yeah.
[04:46] I don't know for sure which pandemic it was.
[04:53] Yeah.
[04:54] Yeah.
[04:55] Yeah.
[04:56] Yeah.
[04:57] So that could be up for debate.
[04:58] That feels good.
[04:59] It does.
[05:00] I like black plague.
[05:01] I like Middle Ages.
[05:02] Yeah, that sounds good.
[05:03] You like black plague?
[05:04] Oh, yeah.
[05:05] I'm a big fan of black plague.
[05:06] I mean, in fairness, were they, I mean, at any point during the Middle Ages where
[05:12] people like, oh, you're sick, we should stay away from each other.
[05:15] Or were they like, oh, God just hates you.
[05:17] That has shit to do with me.
[05:20] Right.
[05:21] And there wasn't a lot of tuberculosis or something.
[05:23] Yeah.
[05:24] Or, yeah.
[05:25] I mean, could it come as late as the Spanish flu, 1918, or is that too late?
[05:30] When did germ theory come about?
[05:31] Yeah.
[05:32] They weren't washing their hands during the black plague, I'm pretty sure.
[05:37] Part of the reason the black plague happened.
[05:38] Definitely.
[05:39] I mean, doctors weren't even like doing, they were doing surgeries in open rooms without
[05:46] gloves or anything.
[05:47] Listers like the 1880s or something.
[05:50] Yeah, like early 1900s, maybe.
[05:52] Okay, well, let's go the Spanish flu.
[05:56] The Spanish flu.
[05:57] 1918.
[05:58] Yeah.
[05:59] I like that.
[06:01] So you think before that, people just didn't know how it spread at all?
[06:05] They didn't.
[06:06] They just piled up on top of each other.
[06:07] They had no idea.
[06:08] Yeah.
[06:09] Okay.
[06:10] Yeah.
[06:11] But the Spanish flu, though, it's not that long lasting.
[06:12] You wouldn't lock somebody up for 40 days over the Spanish flu.
[06:16] It's a good point.
[06:17] Good call.
[06:18] Okay.
[06:19] Okay.
[06:22] So we're thinking like late 1800s and when is tuberculosis running rampant?
[06:27] Or maybe, I mean, maybe it was even late, like smallpox.
[06:32] Smallpox.
[06:33] Yeah.
[06:34] I like that.
[06:35] Smallpox was a good one.
[06:37] I mean, my mom tells stories about how she wasn't allowed to use the public pool because
[06:45] her mom was afraid she'd get polio.
[06:47] But I guess that's later.
[06:49] Mm-hmm.
[06:50] Did you say poolio?
[06:52] Yeah, poolio.
[06:53] You're afraid to get poolio.
[06:54] That's why you don't take...
[06:55] Mm-hmm.
[06:56] Don't jump in the pool.
[06:57] Okay.
[06:58] It's funny how it's like swung, like germ theory has swung so far that people were like, are
[07:09] like overly, you know, the HIV epidemic, like people went nuts for like, you could get
[07:15] it from toilet seat or something like that.
[07:17] Right.
[07:18] Like it's swung so far.
[07:19] Yeah.
[07:20] Yeah.
[07:21] It's like having that far.
[07:22] Yeah.
[07:23] Germaphobe.
[07:24] Back then it was like, I will happily rub my face in your blood.
[07:27] Doesn't matter.
[07:28] That was a pastime, back then, sure.
[07:36] Okay.
[07:39] So we're thinking, so I know I'm 99% sure it's French.
[07:45] Who's getting boils?
[07:47] What's boils?
[07:49] Is that the black plague?
[07:52] Boils go way back, right?
[07:54] Because isn't that a biblical thing?
[07:55] There was like a plague.
[07:56] That was one of the plagues.
[07:57] Well, but I'm wondering like, when people maybe thought like maybe boils, like is a clear
[08:02] sign that someone's sick and maybe I should stay away from them is my point.
[08:05] Yeah.
[08:06] I mean, pustules are a pretty good indication that somebody's sick.
[08:09] So was that, was, yeah.
[08:11] Is that part of the plague?
[08:12] Do we get pustules?
[08:15] I think he did from the black plague.
[08:16] Yeah.
[08:18] That's why I think maybe it's that.
[08:19] But they still thought it was God.
[08:20] Yeah.
[08:21] I've seen stuff like that too, right?
[08:22] Yeah.
[08:23] But man, I wouldn't want to be around that.
[08:25] Well, yeah, but that's, I mean, that's more of a visceral, you think it's gross thing,
[08:31] not you think that person has germs thing.
[08:34] Yeah.
[08:35] If I didn't understand what germs were, I just be like, wow, that's, yeah, the blight
[08:38] upon you from the Lord.
[08:40] Sure.
[08:41] I got bad news for you.
[08:43] Yeah.
[08:44] Kind of whiffed.
[08:45] We did.
[08:46] Kind of.
[08:47] Yeah, not entirely.
[08:48] So the meaning of the word quarantine comes from quarantina, which does mean 40 days.
[08:55] Nice.
[08:56] But it was used in the 14th to 15th centuries Venetian language.
[09:00] Venetian.
[09:01] Yeah.
[09:02] So, and this was, it looks like this specific thing originated with ships that came into
[09:07] port during the black plague, it would, there would be a 30 day isolation on the boat.
[09:13] It would be 40, I assume, not 30.
[09:17] CDC website has 40.
[09:20] I'm looking at the, a different, a different page, but yeah, so 30, you know, 30, 40.
[09:28] So we were, we were right.
[09:29] We just didn't do ships and we were French instead of Venetian, but we talked about
[09:32] the plague.
[09:33] Right.
[09:34] True.
[09:35] True.
[09:36] That's true.
[09:37] But so I guess that's where that is.
[09:38] But the idea, the specific idea is much, much older than that.
[09:44] There's stuff from in the biblical times, uh, seventh century BC or earlier, uh, where people
[09:52] that were sick were being separated out, um, and, and kept in isolation, um, many, many.
[10:01] I guess I'm confused now though, right?
[10:03] So they, people were sick, so they were isolating them to decrease infection.
[10:10] Why did they think they were doing that?
[10:14] I don't know.
[10:16] So okay, there, there is a, there is an understanding without germ theory, there is an understanding
[10:22] of, of illness fairly on, like part of the reason that the, um, um, a lot of like Jewish
[10:30] law is about like keeping people sanitary, right?
[10:34] Like, um, keeping things kosher and stuff, um, the idea of expelling women while they're
[10:39] on their periods out of the tribe and let them, I mean, all that stuff is about a couple
[10:43] things.
[10:44] Okay.
[10:45] So with the biblical things, they made those laws to keep people safe, not because they
[10:49] understood it, get people safe.
[10:50] Right?
[10:51] I mean, that's like things that are handed down, right?
[10:54] No, I, I just, but, but right.
[10:56] But I mean, there was some basic, like understanding is the wrong word, but like the reason these
[11:02] things get passed down is because they're working, right?
[11:04] So like, that's, that's how this, this, you know, when you're a small tribe, you're
[11:09] trying to keep yourself alive and that's how you pass that along.
[11:11] Right?
[11:12] So with a, with a verbal history like that, as opposed to a written history, right?
[11:16] What you have is trial and error.
[11:18] Sure.
[11:19] For sure.
[11:20] Yeah.
[11:21] So we're agreeing.
[11:23] Well, I just don't understand what that has to do with proximity to things, right?
[11:27] I mean, that's, this thing literally kills somebody.
[11:29] We'll stop doing that.
[11:30] Right?
[11:31] This is trial and error.
[11:32] This isn't, I don't understand.
[11:34] I don't know.
[11:35] This is weird to me.
[11:37] Right.
[11:38] Well, I mean, if, if trial and error at some point is creating stricter laws than even
[11:43] that, that, you know, that even makes sense at the time, because there is no
[11:49] understanding.
[11:50] I feel like you don't need to understand everything about germ theory to
[11:55] understand that like everyone in the same household got the same illness.
[11:59] Yeah.
[12:00] Like stay away from those people, you know, because everyone that, you know, it's
[12:03] like, oh, it's so and so went over there and now they're sick.
[12:06] We ate this meat that was old and everybody got sick.
[12:09] Let's not do that again.
[12:11] I'm reading that there was a prior to germ theory, there was a thing called
[12:15] miasma theory, which was that a noxious form of bad air emanating from rotting
[12:25] organic matter.
[12:26] Okay.
[12:27] Now we're going to found you.
[12:28] Yeah.
[12:29] Yeah.
[12:30] That's close enough.
[12:31] Yes.
[12:32] And it's the same idea worth like proximity to things like, even if it
[12:35] don't, it's not the same contents of the noxious air, but close enough.
[12:41] Yeah.
[12:42] So such infections, according to the theory, were not passed between
[12:45] individuals, but would affect those within a locale that gave rise to the
[12:49] vapors or whatever.
[12:52] So they had to say they had to be diffuses a quarter of the city or
[12:57] something.
[12:58] And so, gotcha.
[13:03] And then I read earlier that the the the the plague of boils is probably
[13:08] smallpox.
[13:09] Hmm.
[13:10] Okay.
[13:11] Okay.
[13:16] So we were partially correct, for sure.
[13:18] Yeah.
[13:19] I mean, I'm mostly mostly talking about the black plague.
[13:24] So I did see that the word quarantine itself is French.
[13:27] So that's where that where I got the French from, but I just go back
[13:31] further.
[13:32] They still live from somebody else.
[13:35] As all language was.
[13:36] Oh, I see.
[13:37] Yeah.
[13:38] So specifically the word quarantine is French, but I see what you're
[13:41] saying.
[13:42] Right.
[13:43] But it was based on another word from Venice.
[13:44] Yes.
[13:46] It's still pretty weird to me that they ended up quarantining ships.
[13:50] Like, it seems like a pretty lucky coincidence, because they're afraid
[13:55] what their science on this was not real strong.
[13:58] They're afraid what they're going to get from other things.
[14:02] The air.
[14:03] Yeah.
[14:04] Yeah.
[14:05] Yeah, exactly.
[14:06] Think of it.
[14:07] The sea, this sweet sea air would sweep away the vapors.
[14:10] You would think, right, but.
[14:13] I think the people of the day at least knew more than we're giving
[14:19] them credit for.
[14:20] Maybe we can if we can just find out if they let the sailors who
[14:23] come in on those ships just go out and drink at the bar and hit
[14:27] the whorehouses.
[14:28] If they let that happen, they definitely didn't know a damn
[14:31] thing.
[14:32] I'm pretty sure they let that happen.
[14:34] They probably did.
[14:35] Right.
[14:36] I'm pretty sure.
[14:37] I'm pretty sure if I go to Atlanta right now, I can get a tattoo and
[14:39] go.
[14:41] Tattoo.
[14:42] You can probably give a tattoo.
[14:45] With no prior experience.
[14:46] No prior experience.
[14:47] No licensing necessary.
[14:48] It's just supply and demand.
[14:51] Gotta keep the economy open.