Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Fasting

Episode Date: January 6, 2016

This week on Sawbones, Justin and Sydnee finally kick the eating habit as they explore the often-disturbing history of fasting. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

Saubones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books! One, two, one, two, three, four! I'm not a sense the escalant macaque for the mouth. Wow.

I'm already in one of the solbos, and I'm a little too of misguided medicine. I'm your co-host Just a macaroid and I'm Sydney Macro I didn't inhale there is a drama. You sounded like you sounded like you weren't sure what you were gonna say You know what followed I never was I just a bad breath. I'm not gonna magic coming. You have different like Different people that you pretend to be like different ali in. Do you have different, like, different people that you pretend to be, like, different aliases? And you just couldn't remember, like, which, oh my gosh, like, which wife you're with at this moment

and all of a sudden, like, it's all coming crashing down around me. You have many wives in many places and, no, I've just figured it out, based on that long pause and our partner. None of what you're saying is accurate. I have different personalities for every show. Every podcast, monocity. It's like we get different personalities for every show. Every podcast, I'm honest.

It's like we get different Justin, different permutations, different masks. What do you call this Justin that I get? The dumb one. Dumb Justin. I have to play down my inherent smarts and street smarts, if you would. That you demonstrate so well on your other show?

Yes, on those I'm very sad. I'm the savvy one, and most of the anyway. I'm hungry. Well, I most of the anyway. I'm hungry. Well, I was hungry. Let me back up. I just ate lunch. That's a triumph in our household right now because we were sick.

And I'm sorry, we missed you guys last week, but we were all quite sick. We blame it on our baby who made us sick. She got sick first. The night of candlelight show, she was very sick. She had a high fever. We almost canceled.

Almost canceled, yeah. But she got, her fever came down and she was doing okay and my wonderful parents stepped in to save the day. And so we showed much of her. So then she just sort of passed it around. Yeah. But she's well now, we're well.

I'm, I never got it. Not come on. She had add no virus, which by the way, do you know how it's transmitted? Yes, but only because you gleefully told me fecal to oral. Yeah, it's the fecal oral route, which is like upsetting that I got it.

I won't do that. Yeah, don't even think about that, but I am stowed. I just ain't lunch. Happy to have it appetite again I did so didn't have much of an appetite because you guys like we're just puking and great We're pretty sick and neither was felt like eating much, but we're doing better. I just ate some orange slices Yeah, some triskits

Why'd you say that like it was a really like sexy thing? Triskits are the sexy scracker. Except some may be like club crackers because what do they do in there in that club? I actually, I will tell you that I love Triskits. I was just and you can attest to this. I was saying the other day that I wanna have a party someday, which is where I only serve Tr trisket with all the different

Recipes that they have on the side of the trisket boxes like each flavor has like a different top recipe Trisket recipe where it is an hour of preparation of steak that you then put on a trisket You cook it for you like is it hour of stuff that is like in the but Put it on a trisket. You make it to be cherry sauce for it and then put it on a trisket then put it on a trisket But yeah, we have an appetite again. No more no more fasting for us and And we can usually agree that a sign that eating again re re gaining your appetite is a sign that you're getting better I think. But you know, some people thought that maybe not eating was the key to good health. That's been a theory throughout medical history that may be just avoiding food altogether

as the way to true health. Not a good long game if you really think about it that doesn't make a lot of sense long-term. Like you would think that that would be obvious, but it wasn't always. Okay, well, we'll tell you about it that doesn't make a lot of sense long-term. Like you would think that that would be obvious, but it wasn't always. Okay, well, we'll tell you about it, Sid. Let's talk a little bit about fasting and starvation. I want to thank a few people who've recommended this topic. Thank you to Catherine and your little sister Victoria, who wants to be a pediatrician by the way.

Go for Victoria. Thank you, Corey, Alan, Ali, and Carly for all recommending this topic. Now, as I said, depriving yourself of food has been thought to be spiritually beneficial for a really long time. No, I do know about that. Like a religious fast.

Jesus went in the desert four days, four nights, Satan tried to tempt him with triskits and he wasn't having any of it. Is that what it, triskits? Maybe not triskits. Well, they had steak on them though. I can see why I'd be a very dim thing. There are lots of religious grounds for fasting. And this goes back to like the Greeks thought that the ancient Greeks thought that demons could enter your body while you were eating. And so fasting was a way to, you know, purify your spirit,

it was cleanse yourself. Okay. And then certainly that's been used in, and I would wager to say the majority of not all major world religions in different times of the year, maybe different religious seasons. I know for instance having been raised Catholic that Lent was a time when fasting to various degrees would occur. And it was a way of like, you know, like cleansing yourself in a spiritual sense, right? But not so much like to make you healthy. It was suggested back during the Salem witch trials that maybe all the girls would get better if they just stopped eating.

No, that's not cool. No, but again, this was more of a spiritual connection. And when we look through like what we kind of consider some of our great thinkers, medical and otherwise throughout history, everybody. I don't pretend earlier when I said they would get better if they stopped eating. Pretend that I said I didn't know that Cosmo

was in charge of the Salamun's trials. Cosmo magazine. It's like image. What do you think Cosmo magazine is about? They're like girls, 17 magazine. Which magazine tells girls to stop eating? All magazines and everything on TV and everything. Okay, well pretend that, I don't know where you find the joke there,

but pretend that I said that. Except for me. Whatever the funny and tasteful choice would be. That's not true anymore. When I was growing up, I think that that was true. I think that's probably not as true nowadays, right? It's better. I really think there's a consciousness of it.

Like, yeah, I think sure. But, but not to say that there's, it promised fix. We're just like, oh, thank goodness, Fimo Bayo image got all worked out. Like, they didn't, sorry. Because those dov commercials, they fixed everything. Thank you, dov. And Jello, Jello do some, thank you, Jello,

dov and Goldie Blocks. They're out, they're out in history. And that's too commercial with the two gay dads. That, I don't know, that's not connected, but man, I mean, we feel good. I do like it, I do love that commercial Throughout history a lot of great so you know considered great thinkers have talked about how you should fast like Paraselsis who we did a show on so that fasting was like the key to good health

Hippocrates that stole the virtues of fasting Benjamin Franklin said fasting was a good idea There's absolutely hypocritical. I've seen pictures of Ben Franklin. fasting was a good idea. There's absolutely. There's absolutely a hypocritical. I've seen pictures of Ben Franklin. He was not that in the fasting. He meant for everybody else. Everybody else to leave more for him. Hey, you should fast on those canopies that that guy just brought.

Don't eat those, those are bins. Like he had gout, right? Didn't Ben Franklin have gout? I'm sure he did. I feel like he had gout. And so like, I mean, he was eating some pretty rich stuff. Gout. Gout.

You've already forgotten what gout is, haven't you? It's re-eat rich food and your fever. Okay, pretty good, close enough. It's actually inscribed on an Egyptian pyramid that humans live on one quarter of what they eat on the other three quarters lives their doctor. Do you know, insinuating that you should eat about a quarter of what you eat,

because your, all that other food you eat makes you unhealthy. Based on what pyramid, you know me? Have you reviewed the literature pyramid before you told me how to live my life? You are made of rocks. How dare you. And you're a mystery, we don't even know how you were built.

Did you get your body image from the slaves that built you? Because compared to them, I bet most people do look like garishly overweight. Like I just don't get where this pyramid gets up as intentional on people. Do you know when I was in health class as a in middle school? Did you ever have a pyramid for a teacher in health class? No, because they don't know anything.

I told my health teacher in middle school told me that they told us all because it was in our boy girl mixed health class before we separated out to learn about your body's changing. Yeah. Your medical body. Your medical body. That boys are shaped upside down pyramids

and girls are shaped like pyramids. And that's how your body's are supposed to be shaped. Sorry what? Like we're smaller at the top and then we get really wide at the bottom and boys are supposed to be really wide at the top And smaller than this. That guy's just like was your teacher so mixed a lot? Um, in the late 1800s we really see

Starvation and fasting used as like a medical treatment. Dr. Edward Dewey wrote a book called The True Science of Living. And in it, he initially suggested that maybe a lot of disease is the result of you're eating too much food, and so you're creating too much digestive juice, and like you're swallowing all this digestive juice, and that's making you sick. So he advised skipping breakfast. Nonsense.

No. One of his patients, and also his publisher, Charles Haskell, subscribed to this theory, lived by it, claimed that it cured him of every disease he had and made him feel amazingly better. And so he wrote a book about starving yourself even more. So if you have skipping breakfast is good. Okay.

Imagine skipping all your meals. And it was called Perfect Health, how to get it and how to is good. Okay. Imagine skipping all your meals. And it was called perfect health, how to get it, and how to keep it. And basically it was about depriving yourself of food for various periods of time in different ways. Actually, Uptans and Claire wrote a book about fasting. You know, who wrote the jungle? Yeah.

He wrote the fasting cure. It was an om fiction. Interesting. A big event in the history of fasting is in 1880 when Dr. Henry S. Tanner fasted publicly in New York. He wanted to prove that the medical establishment was wrong when it said that you know you like you need to eat to live like that established medical truth was wrong that the human body could go just fine without food for very long periods of time. So he fasted for 42 days in public in New York,

like on a stage, he said a pool of stage. And to prove that the human body didn't need food, like, and he did this twice, because the first time there's some question as to how much it was observed, and then he repeated it supposedly, completely in the public eye. And David, he was the David Blaine at this time.

Exactly, I mean, like the same idea. And the story goes that he absolutely didn't need. He got sick at first and then he got better. And like doctors would stand around every day taking bets on how many more days until he died. But that he lasted 42 days and he didn't get sick. And then at the end of, no. At the end of his fast, he just started eating everything.

Like, didn't even have to like, slowly introduce food. He just ate whatever he wanted and he was fine. Now I've watched a lot of fast-breaking videos on YouTube and those people normally start with something like water and then orange juice. That's what you're supposed to do because you can get pretty sick if you have been fasting for a long time. You don't start with water.

That wouldn't make any sense. Water is part of the fast, but like orange juice. Yeah. And I should say that. Dr. Tanner did, he did drink liquid. He wasn't going to at first. He was going to deprive himself of food and liquid. Yeah. And I should say that. Dr. Tanner did, he did drink liquid. He was going to, he wasn't going to at first. He was going to deprive himself of food and liquid. That's, but that would not have gone as well. And then he did that for like five days or something,

three, five days, something like that until he was pretty sick. And then somebody was like, maybe you should let yourself drink water and he goes, maybe I will. I get on him though for realizing like, okay, listen, I'm not going to, I'm not going to die on this hill. This one's on me. I'm like, okay, listen, I'm not gonna die on this hill. This one's on me. This one's on Hank. I do need liquids. Sorry, everybody. Now, into this fasting milieu is born,

a character that I think deserves a lot of the time of this episode for her investigations into the starvation diet, so to speak. And her name is Dr. Linda Hazard. She was born in Minnesota in 1867. And she grew up, she was not a trained doctor in any way, or any kind of medical professional. Okay.

She practiced homeopathy and some various alternative medicines. Now you did say doctor at the beginning of your name. Yes, because she was known as a doctor because of some sort of old like law in in Washington, which is where she practiced, which grandfathered her in as a as a licensed physician under some laws that were supposed to apply to alternative practitioners who did go to traditional medical schools. And so anyway, as a result of that, she was known as Dr. Hazard, even though technically she was not in any way a doctor. She started, she published her book in the same year that they published the Pure Food

and Drug Act, right? Ninety-O-A, it was in the perfect year. Yeah, 1912 Yeah, but I mean around the same time and there was a big movement against like Medicines in general. Yeah, I mean we've talked about this like there was this like undercurrent of alternative medicine That was arrived arising at this time, so there were a lot of doctors who were very invested in kind of overturning the established medical system Because the government was also at this point refining a lot, 1908, early 20th century, like really refining what medicine could be and what the rules were for, and it's just

just practices. And of course, anytime that happens, you're going to have people pushing back against that with, you know, alternatives. Exactly. And it seemed pretty harmless because her idea was she published Fasting for the Care of Disease, and she was a licensed, called fasting specialist, which is a thing you could be. And basically, she believed in this in order to treat her patients.

And she'd be in practicing this in the early 1900s, treating patients with this regimen of basically bowel rest, meaning that sometimes yourels just need a break, so don't put anything in them. For long periods of time, intense fasting. And when I say fasting, I don't mean like, I guess I shouldn't say anything in them. There were days where maybe you wouldn't need anything, but most days you would get like, maybe a cup of vegetable broth twice a day, or one orange for the entire day, or a couple of a cup of broth and maybe a tablespoon of orange juice later or something like that.

You would pair this fasting, which would go on for weeks and weeks and weeks, by the way, months and months, I mean not for 42 days, for months. You would pair it with animals, long animals, hour long animals to clean you out. And also very vigorous massages. These massages were actually documented to be like so intensive. Patients were practically beaten. They would be left bruised. She would do them herself sometimes and she would just pound on her patients and scream eliminate. Eliminate? Eliminate. While they're not showing it. Eliminate.

I'm on the dollar diet. And so her patients, as you can imagine, were really put through the ringer with this treatment. These inemas, by the way, would last, like I said, for hours. And so they actually had, she had these special bath tubs that were outfitted with like supports that you could lean on. So you could stand up in the bathtub and lean on this like cushion support while they did the anima because you were likely to pass out because it went on for so long. Tell me they got a magazine. What? Did they get a magazine or something? I don't think so. I don't know. They didn't document if they had magazines

or not. I'll have to read more. Yes, even find out for me. As you can imagine, so Dr. Hazard practiced in Washington. She set up a place that had initially been known as wilderness heights on a little town called Olawala, but became known because of this as starvation heights, because this is where she set a persaneterium and where she practiced.

Many patients, as a result of this regimen, starved to death. This is because of the lack of food. Yes, because you need that. If her patients died, by the way, you know, she did her own autopsies. That's convenient. Yeah, and then she would,

and also she's not a doctor, So what is she doing? And then she would have the patient buried quickly and discreetly with a local funeral home that she kind of had to deal with. Now, like I said, a lot of patients were dying under this regimen, but there were two that finally kind of spelled the end of this awful of this awful treatment by Dr. Hazard. There are two British sisters named Claire and Dora Williamson. Now, they had some minor medical problems. These were two younger women who had probably a lot of money and a lot of time, and a lot more concern for some of their minor medical issues. Like, for instance, I believe Dora had what was called a dropped uterus at the time.

I don't even know if she really had anything. But the point is they weren't sick, but they did have a passion for alternative medicine. And they really wanted to try this, what they called the most beautiful treatment that Dr. Linda Hazard could provide. So they went to put themselves under her care, expecting to go to the sanitary and medallala.

That was part of the draw for them is that they read about this beautiful wilderness where they would stay and, you know, see animals running around in the trees and it would be gorgeous. You're not able to eat them. Can you imagine that? Watching animals just not being able to eat them. That would be terrible. Hey, dear Camira, I want to take a bite on you.

I'm very hungry. That's how dear work. Hey, dear. Instead, they initially spent a couple months in a small apartment in Seattle because the sanitarium wasn't yet ready when they got there. Eating tomato broth like a cup of day and getting enemas constantly.

After two months, they were finally transferred to the sanitarium in Alala, and they weighed about 70 pounds at the time. They made it there. That's disgusting. Yeah. God's savage. Despite the fact that they, by all accounts, they were not doing well.

They continued with the regimen. However, they did send, and they didn't tell most of their family because their family had already kind of given them a hard time for all of the different alternative treatments that they were fans of and so they didn't want to get more flack from their family. So they did send a letter to their childhood nurse to let her know what they were doing and where they were, just a kind of updater. And whatever they put in that letter was so bizarre and sounded so nonsensical that she actually set sail. She was out of the country to go investigate at Ola-la what was going on. By the time she got there, Claire had already died. Dr. Hazard informed the nurse that

it was related to medicines that Claire had gotten as a child, that they had done so much damage to her body and given her cirrhosis is what she claimed, that even the starvation couldn't save her. So she was dying anyway. It wasn't the starvation's fault. It was, you know, it was, it was happening. The starvation was her last hope. Dora was 50 pounds at this point barely hanging on and Dr. Hazard had tried to get her declared insane so that she could take over control of her estate. Claire had already signed over all of her possessions, money, belongings, future fortune, everything to the Hazard family, to Linda Hazard and her husband.

And the decision-making for Dora had already been put in their hands as well. It actually took one of their wealthy uncles, Bry being the hazards with $1,000 to even let the nurse get Dora out of there. Yeah, so like, they buster? Well, Justin, if you want to find out about that, you're going to have to follow me first to the Berlin department. Well, let's go. So I want Linda to go to the Poke sitting in your the only one who could send her there through time. and you're the only one who could send her there through time. So as you can imagine, with these kind of two high-profile victims of Linda Hazard,

the authorities begin to get involved with what's happening at starvation heights. And the crime-solving nurse. And the crime-solving nurse. On her tail. And the rich uncle. In my film, that's Helen Mirren. And Hugh Dancy is probably the rich uncle, but like Helen Mirren is totally the nurse. She's like, take no prisoners.

So she reported this. They all did with Doris Halp once. Doris was well enough to be able to form a sentence probably. They reported all this to the authorities. And that's when the investigation began. And it really became clear what Linda Hazard was doing at her so-called sanitarium. She had starved at least a dozen people to death. Before their death, she often had convinced them or coerced them into handing over their

own physical valuables that they had with them, control of property that they may own. She was executive of their states often, the point of that before they even died. And so there was a belief that not only was she, maybe this wasn't all well-intentioned, like I'm trying to fix these people and it's just going so wrong. Like maybe there were some sinister motives.

She was even accused, because it was noted that when when the Williamson girls' nurse went to see Claire, when see her at the funeral home, that it didn't look like her. And it was even stated that maybe Linda Hazard was paying off the morgue to get healthier corpses to display at the funerals. So the patient's families wouldn't know how bad they looked before they died. Because if they had seen, they would have said like, what did you do to my loved one?

So maybe. Now I don't know if that's true. That doesn't make sense because what did they do? A head swap too? I was like, I think they'd recognize, right? I don't know if that's true. That doesn't make sense because what did they do? A head swap too? I was like, I think they'd recognize, right? I don't know. Oh. I don't know.

Oh. Maybe, maybe. It's not our weird old rumor. We didn't start it. They uncovered a diary of one patient. You can find this diary actually online of one man who underwent a hazard treatment. And he kept like all of the meals he ate each day,

just like a list of how he felt each day and what he ate. And you can just, yeah. And you can read as he's just feeling worse and worse. And like, January 5th, super duper hungry now. No seriously, super hungry. And it would almost seem like a punishment. Like, you know, February 27th for breakfast,

I had two oranges, so no lunch or dinner. And that kind of thing. And like, and he feels worse and worse, and then finally the diary ends abruptly when he dies of starvation. Right, because of the lack of food. So in 1911, so there was a huge trial in 1911, Linda Hazard was charged with manslaughter.

And let me just say, there were doctors who tried to come to her defense, who believed in this and tried to come testify that, no, she was right, the medical establishment is wrong. You can totally starve yourself. These patients were gonna die anyway. She did the best thing she could for them. So that just proves how sick they must have been because even starvation didn't work.

So despite all this, she was charged with manslaughter in 1911. She only did two years of hard labor at Walla Walla before being pardoned by the governor. Why I don't know. Onlookers at the pardoning, notice that his stomach was rumbling, and so maybe he was in a lit too. But she was pardoned. She did have her license revoked when she was

when she was you know charge with manslaughter and she did not get her license back her fake license but she was free so she went to New Zealand where she had actually amassed quite a following there practiced for a while she did get in trouble got fined there for practicing as a doctor when she in fact wasn't. And then went back to Olala in 1920 and built her sanitarium there again. But she didn't call it a sanitarium, she called it like a school of health so that technically wasn't like she got away with not having a license because she didn't call it, you know. And the authorities watched her very closely and as far as I know nobody died in

the last, in those 15 years that it, you know, it was in operation. It burned down in 1935. Yeah. Now Linda got pretty sick a few years after that in 1938. But luckily she knew just what to do when one gets really sick. Medicine? No, she starved herself. Oh, no Linda. So she died of starvation. Because of the lack of food again. Yeah, it's a predictable path here. It's like you know, almost like a new food. Supposedly the house where the hazards used to live is haunted. I found that like on a like weird Washington site, like you could read about all the noises they've heard, and they found a copy of her book,

Lane on the Stairs, and they didn't know where it came from. You can still see the remains of the sanitarium there, if you feel inclined to visit. It sounds like a really beautiful place other than this awful history. Now, there are still people today who claim that fasting works. You can find a

lot of what they call alternative medicine sites. I wouldn't even call this alternative medicine. I would call it quackery where it is claimed that if you fast, like for instance the water fast where you know you just drink water that you can cure your diabetes, your high blood pressure, basically any problems you have. Now it's worth noting though, that you are not specifically calling out. There are lots of different like eating methods and diets that have been tagged with like fasting.

You're not talking about all of those, right? Like you're not talking about like the fast diet, for example, is something that I actually tried and the one which is like 600. Those are like limited, very limited scope fasting. Yeah, I would be very careful in general about eating, about an extreme limitation of caloric intake. We have a lot of science that says, it not only is it not good for you to go without

food or to go with very little food, but it's not even really good for weight loss in the long run because it slows down your metabolism. So I would not recommend cutting out food as a viable plan for anything for whatever your desired outcome is. It's your full. That's a good reason. I mean, yeah, like if you're full stop eating, but but like but then when you're hungry again like eat again Right, yeah, I don't stop forever You know you need anything and even flow

Because like what that like that water facet I was reading about like you eat like a very small amount of food sort of like the hazard Plan for three or four days and then you have nothing but water for like 10 or 11 days Like I would never recommend that that's not that's not a good idea Yeah for people certainly people who are ill. And they have this paper that I found published where it says this will cure hypertension and we have patients that were cured of hypertension. I would be very skeptical about that.

I'd like to see that why I wouldn't reproduce that because that sounds like torture. But also, if you lose weight, your blood pressure might go down some and if you're not eating you're going to lose weight at first and the long run you're going to do more harm than good to your body. So just be sensible, eat healthy, well-melted diet, and exercise and don't starve yourself. You wouldn't think that'd be revolutionary advice, but there you go.

No, and also food tastes good. Delicious. You're missing out on all those trisks and all that soup. Sid, we got some very nice gifts and cards during the candlelight season, both in our live show in the mail. We did it. We got a lovely postcard from Isaac.

We got a card from Valerie, who also made me a shower cap, which was super cool, in addition from M. We got a picture of a rad cat for Charlie. And from Andrea, Happy Holidays and Cookies. And finally from Amanda sent us some delicious chocolate. So thank you guys. Oh great jacket for Chuck. Yes, absolutely. When we get this stuff in the mail, we always write it down.

But when we're doing shows, we don't get people's names. When we give a stuff in person, we have a bad habit of not writing down. I, because that's awkward, isn't it? Like in an interaction line. Hold on. Let me, could you, could you write your name down? So I don't forget to say it later. We record because I got a super cool knitted like dissected frog.

You saw that which is awesome and up displayed in our home already. It is. And I love it. And thank you very much. And if you tweet at me, I will call you by name. And thank you. Thank you so much to the Max Fun Network for having us as part of their extended podcast family. Go to MaxMumFun.org to check out all their great shows like stop podcasting yourself, one bad mother, Ono Ross and Carrie, and many, many more. So go check those out. Thank you to the taxpayers for letting us use their song Medicines is the intro and

outro of our program. They're on Twitter at the taxpayers going find their stuff for sale wherever we find music is sold I believe. And that's gonna do it for us until next time I'm Justin McRoy. I'm Sydney McRoy. And as always don't do a whole Alright! Maximumfund.org Comedy and Culture, Artistone. Listen or Support it. culture, artist owned.

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