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

Episode Date: January 21, 2014

Welcome to Sawbones, where Dr. Sydnee McElroy and her husband Justin McElroy take you on a whimsical tour of the dumb ways in which we've tried to fix people. This week: Aunt Flo crashes on our couch. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers (http://thetaxpayers.net)

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. We came across a pharmacy with a toy and that's lost it out. We were shot through the broken glass and had ourselves a look around.

The medicines, the medicines, the escalators, my cop, for the mouth Hello, everybody and welcome to saw bones a marital tool of misguided medicine. I am your co-host just macaroy And I'm sitting macaroni. Well said We're we're taking on a serious serious issue today today's topic is An issue a disease that plagues almost all women. It's something that they have to struggle with. A disease that they are, I hate to use the word cursed, but I feel like that's appropriate. And I'm hopeful that through today's episode on

menstruation, we can all get together and finally find a cure. So, wait. How about it? It's 12 or 14. Okay. Where's the cure? So you know what we're talking about today? Minstration, the disease of menstruation.

Wait, no, no, no, no, no, yes. I mean, yes, we're gonna talk about menstruation, but you know it's not a disease, right? I mean, it's not a disease. I don't understand where we're, our scientists are letting our women bleed once a month as if I get injured and I start bleeding, I go to the doctor.

But somehow, at some point, the men in this country of science and industry just decide, well, that's just normal. I guess women just bleed. Okay, no, okay. First of all, guys. First of all, this is ridiculous. First of all, it's not an illness.

It's normal and it's natural and it's just part of being a woman. It's normal. Secondly, men definitely have tried to stop it and fix it and hide it and have definitely been made uncomfortable by administration for a long time. So yeah, I don't think they're trying to cure it so much as pretend it's not happening. Okay. Well, that's okay. But it's not an illness. Who told you it was an illness? Do you even know what it is? I have a vague understanding. If someone were

to not know, let's say, be completely in the dark comment. Just not not somebody who's sitting next to me. No, necessarily. Somebody in podcasts. Didn't they teach you this in fifth grade? I actually was in the boys class. I know, but in the girls class, they taught us about boys. Oh, well, okay, this is an uneven deal, and this explains everything. If you guys were getting a guy's segment, and then that actually explains a lot. So you didn't get a girl's segment? Not on memory now. I'll give you a brief, I can't believe I'm doing this.

I'll give you a brief overview of what a period is. Yeah, absolutely. If you want a better reference than what I'm about to give you, may I suggest a Disney film? Bambi? I certainly hope they don't cover this in Bambi. I mean, it's been a while since I've seen it, but if this is in it, that was a very different movie than I'm remembering. No, it was called the story of menstruation. They used to show it to school kids between 1945 and 1951. And interestingly, it was the first screenplay to use the word vagina. I have not seen that particular Disney film.

I'm thinking it must be buried in the vault back with song of the South. I don't know where, when does that one come out of the vault? Yeah, when will we, when will we, when is that one coming back on blue, right? Was that blue, right? Let it out of the vault. Interestingly, and the blood is white. Wow, really?

Yeah, the blood was, they thought it would be too upsetting if it looked like blood, so anything that is, that's good, that's not gonna scare our team girls. I know, do get their periods and it's blood. What? Disney said it was blood. I'm sick. Okay, so if you don't have time to run out

and purchase a copy of the minstrel story by Disney, have a podcast. In short, since Justin doesn't know, come on now. Your period is something that only happens to women, obviously, because Justin doesn't know, your period is something that only happens to women obviously because Justin doesn't know about it, although to be fair you might not even if it did. Fair to you. That is fair. And it's because once a month a woman ovulates or releases an egg from her ovary and it goes down into

her uterus where it actually on the way in the tube could be fertilized to become a baby. Okay. That's where babies come. That's all perfectly sound and reasonable. Except that if you if it isn't then instead you you know get rid of everything that's inside your uterus. So you shed the lining, the endometrium, and you get rid of the egg that was unfernalized. And all of this comes out as a period or a period, a time period, this is where the word comes from, a period of time, where you bleed. Okay.

So, it happens about once a month for most women, at last five to seven days, usually. You usually lose about a cup or less of blood, so it's not a very heavy, although it can seem that way. It's usually not much heavier than that. And it can be accompanied by things like cramping and fatigue and some women can feel sad or are moodier or tired or angry. How long have we been calling at a period? Is that, that seems like something polite society would create a euphemism from polite society? Period, period came around like in 1822, I think was the first time it was actually used in a text, and it was just helpful because they kind of like I was using it, it is a period of time. So minstrel cycles historically were a great way of kind of figuring out Spans of time. They actually there's some evidence that they were probably used pre-historicly to

Kind of follow the lunar calendar or to to like an early form of math because it was the only thing that you could reliably Wow, you know, you didn't have watches or clocks. You didn't have the sense of time But you knew that there was some interval between This occurrence in a woman's life that for most women was somewhat regular. So a period of time, it became known as a period. It was actually, pregnancy was met with a lot of chagrin because I know it was accompanied

the family having to buy a watch. So that was unfortunate. And a calendar, there's a whole list of expenses. It's not bad enough you gotta get a crib. There's also a word of expenses. It's not bad enough you got to get a crib. There's also a word forth that we don't use very often. Catamania. It's a popular for a while. Yeah, I think it was like a technical term that arrived that

was used at some point, but it's really not persisted. Maybe there's some people still using it. It was certainly not something I ever learned. Because if you attempt to find out a lot about catamena by Googling that word, you won't find out about menstrual cycles. For the most part, you're going to find out about a melodic Nordic metal band called Catamena.

As confusing as that must have been for you to discover that in your Googling, I'm sure the inverse situation is equally perplexing. I just like that the Nordic Metal band, Katamenea, likes to make sure that you know they're also melodic. Yeah, that's nice. Yeah, that's straight from them. That's not me. I do so. Everybody can enjoy this melodic Nordic Metal. So you mentioned that women are cursed with this illness. That was just like a joke from the beginning of the show. Well, it's apt. There's actually a whole book about the history

of menstruation called cursed, if you want to, if you ever want to read that. But that was a belief for a long time. When we kind of talk about the history of menstrual periods, how they were perceived, what people thought they were caused by, there's a strong belief in many cultures that it was some kind of punishment. In Judeo-Christian belief, it was the punishment for Eve eating the apple. So childbirth was the ultimate punishment that women have to

go through the pain of childbirth, but the precursor to that is once a month she has to go through a menstrual period, which is painful and causes her to bleed. And if she had just not eaten that apple, she wouldn't have to. In my end mythology, it's also seen as a punishment that it was for some deity that broke a marital alliance, so she had to bleed once a month. And so there you go. Again, and you can kind of see this echoed in Nepal, it's believed that in young girls before their period, there is a deity, Talaju, who is a part of them, who is kind of within them. And then as soon as they have their

first period, they become common and are no longer sacred because the goddess has left their bodies. So they are not valued as highly once they start their periods. Friends, you'll notice that I was conspicuously quiet during that section. We somehow found a way to simultaneously talk about women's health and religion. So there's really not a winning play for me as play by play joke guy. If there's a fourth rail inside the third rail, if you could open the third rail and find a tiny or more dangerous rail inside of it, that would be where we just were.

So thanks for hanging in there with me. Sorry about my contribution. I promise I'll try to do that. All you can really do during that is just smile and look interested. Makes it precisely what I do. Makes them interested. Hmm, hmm, hmms and sounds.

I will say this because as you look into, and then we will depart from religion, if as you look into major world religions, for the most part, there is a strong belief that administration is one, some sort of punishment or curse, and two, that it is a time in a woman's life when she is impure and there are all kinds of restrictions that were placed on her during that time, whether that is, you know, simply maybe

you couldn't take holy communion or something much more intense like you couldn't hand somebody something. A woman could not hand something to a man while she was on her period without it being blessed first. Um, because otherwise he would be, I don't know, infected by her menstrual blood. Um, however, uh, if you're a Sikh, you know, you do not feel that way. No. No, I have to give them credit as I did this research. Sikhism is the one religion that, uh, makes the point that it is not impure. There is no problem with menstruation, it is normal.

Thank you, that's, I like that. That's true scientific. Not if religions have a section just like, what we're cool with. Hey, this is all right by us. Periods are just fine. That's because they don't make enough of a pitch. You know, there's not enough salesmanship in the Bible

or any Bible, all the Bibles. You know, all the Bibles? Yes. Any Bible. Well, I just like that. I would love to read exactly what the tenant is that's like, we are fine with surfing the Crimson Wave. Totally cool.

Ant flows, okay with me. She's got a couch in our place whenever she needs it. And I will say that as, you know, we've been talking about how negatively throughout history that a woman's menstrual period was perceived, there was some evidence that certain cultures and certain time periods, it was not necessarily a bad thing, maybe a scary thing, but not necessarily a bad thing. In prehistoric times, there's evidence that from, I guess cave drawings, I don't know how, how do we figure this stuff out?

I have no idea. That it was, that we do, that I'm not making this up, I swear, I read it. That it was seen as a source of power and like creative energy, because the idea was that babies were thought to be formed from menstrual blood, especially menstrual clots formed babies occasionally. So when they didn't form babies and instead you just bled that this was a time that a woman

was very powerful and could do anything at that time. And kind of following that theme, let's talk about our old friend, Pliny the Elder. Pliny! I had a great idea, Sid and I'm going to tell you, Pliny the Elder t-shirts. So be your first saubon's t-shirt. What it'll be is a stylized Pliny the Elder, but in the fashion of David the gnome. So capturing the spirit of David the gnome, but with a Pliny the Elder, spin on it.

I love this idea. Okay, we'll get those out of you guys. And I know everybody's clamoring to learn more about Pliny the Elder and I'll tell you, I'm working on it guys, but Pliny the Elder had a lot to say about everything. He didn't just just create himself to medicine. No, no, no, no. Everybody can get on that Pliny tip. As little as there is on the internet about Royal Rife, that's true.

There is everything on the internet about Pliny the Elder. Some of it is still being written by Pliny the Elder today. It carries on. It echoes throughout the elder. Some of it is still being written by plenty of the elder to that. It carries on. It echoes throughout the cosmos. He wrote a natural history of everything. Everything. So what did he have to say about periods? Well, he felt that during her period, a woman was very strong and powerful, and that if she removed her clothing, at the right moment, she could stop a hail storm, or perhaps a whirlwind, or maybe lightning. Boy, somewhere in history, there is a very naked, very wet, very angry woman.

Playa? I don't know why Helen Hunt didn't try that in Twister. That would have been a much more intriguing movie. I mean, it would certainly be something. And she's a nice-looking lady. I mean, especially at that time period, wow, she was at her peak. That would have been fantastic. We were there, she had a different twist or two.

I don't know. She made me one who are a wife, Peter, and looked like that. She made us all want to wear a wife. He also believed that he had a lot of these beliefs. I think that at the core of this, he just wanted women to walk around naked. If you could get naked and walk around a field like where you were growing your crops that

it would make all the bugs and worms and caterpillars and stuff fall off all the ears of corn and save your crops. It would certainly make fun of them pleasant after a noon, either way. I think. Wondering naked through a corn field? Yeah. I think that's one of those things you're specifically not supposed to do. I wasn't enjoying this at first, but now there's bugs and worms falling off of everything.

So I'm really getting into it now. Thanks, Pliny. You're right. He also thought that the smell of menstrual blood would drive dogs mad. And that even ants would be repulsed by any grains or discarded anything that was touched by it. It's actually, it was used as an ancient preservation method. They would mix in menstrual blood with their food supply to keep bugs off.

And then nothing would touch it. Nothing would touch it. That always worked. Yep. Um, it took good help. And he wasn't the only one. The Cherokee believed that a menstruating woman had the power to destroy her enemies. And that one I can vouch for.

In, uh, in African myth, uh, menstrual blood is often used in magical charms. And that can be either to purify someone, which is interesting since we have talked a lot about how, you know, it was seen as an impurity. You could purify someone with them or you could destroy them. I guess it's a different charm. I'm assuming you add something now. Hopefully you don't get those confused.

Yeah. This is my destroying menstrual blood. Where's the other jar? And there were also some cures that they thought menstrual blood was responsible for. So they thought you could use it for warts, for birthmarks, got gout, goiters, hemorrhoids, epilepsy, worms, leprosy, headaches. A lot of things. A lot of things.

And I don't know exactly. I didn't find a lot of specifics as to how you used it. I'm hoping it was topical. Yeah. I found a lot of skin stuff. So I'm assuming it was like a topical application. It's actually aerosolized You would just walk it up. Yeah You could also use it as like a love charm or doing off demons offering it to gods and if you were lucky enough to get the first I said I use the word pad that a virgin used but they didn't actually have pads We're talking about probably medieval times, but the first whatever device she used for her period, you could use that to cure plague.

Oh, okay. I didn't know that. I mean, you couldn't, but. Yeah, that's right, conscious. Now, I mean, this, and this gave it a lot of power, certainly, women who were menstruating and menstrual blood itself. And there was a flip side to that,

because also in medieval times, I thought that it could probably give dogs rabies. Okay, see, that one is more confusing, but I guess they're entitled to believe whatever they like. You can kill all kinds of things, fruits, beehives, crops. If a woman, so if an older woman, I thought this was interesting, who had had many periods and had not yet gone through menopause, but was close so just so that she had accumulated a lot of periods in her life. If she looked at you in her gaze, she held enough

power from years of menstrual bleeding, she could poison you with her gaze. Whoa! Yeah, with her period gaze. That explains how Judy Dunge keeps winning all these awards. Very dangerous woman. You do not want to cross Judy Dunge. It was, it's weird though, because at the same time, they also knew that bleeding was important. If you remember, we're talking about a time when bloodletting was the cure for everything. So they thought women were kind of lucky in a way, because they'd already happened to them.

They got like a regular treatment. A regular treatment. I got to pay a lot down at the corner of the barber for that kind of service. But that was another way to use bloodletting was for women who for whatever reason didn't have periods at the time They wouldn't have understood any of why they weren't having them But they knew that women are supposed to bleed regularly so maybe if they don't they'll start to become man-ish So If you can't get them to have periods with then they had a variety of like herbal concoctions to try to make you have a period

If that didn't work just go down to the and, you know, let him bleed you from your armor, whatever. I don't think that's the same thing. It's not. It's not. It's sometimes when I can puzzle these things out the ancient dudes, it could make you feel real superior. You say ancient dudes, it's great because this kind of bizarre belief, I don't know why men are so scared of periods.

Can you elucidate that for me before we move on? I mean... I mean that's what it seems to a lot of, and we're gonna talk, we're gonna kind of move on to like what we do about periods through history, but why are men so freaked out by them? Okay, well it's partially the mystery. We don't like things we don't understand like opera for example and also there's a lot of blood like if like in a really bloody opera and that can be upsetting so I guess what I'm saying is periods are like opera. They're only

appreciated by culture gentlemen like myself. And Julia Roberts, I'm pretty woman who really understood us. She really got it. Okay. Well, I guess I'll accept that. Yes. For now. We'll probe this sometime further after the show. Okay. Sounds good.

But this kind of weird bizarre beliefs and fear persisted in the 1920s. There was a Viennese scientist who believed he isolated something called menotoxins. Not real, I'm assuming? Not that I know of, not that I have found, but they were secreted through a woman's skin while she was menstruating, and they had very specific powers. Okay, I like that powers keep coming up.

This is a great view into the male psyche though. I don't understand it. It might be deadly or it might have superpowers. I'm just going to leave the option. It might be cool. It might be cool. It might be super powerful. I don't know. I'm just going to assume that it's either deadly or super powerful. Well, the power of Minotoxins, we're not necessarily positive though. They could prevent Doe from rising. It's just kind of a lame power. And even worse, they could prevent beer from fermenting. Is there a yeast connection?

Is that what they're trying to draw maybe? I don't know, maybe. It's the only thing that could fight yeast. It was periods. Maybe, but. God, I've put a stop to it. It's gone too far. I mean, yeah, I guess, I mean,

I guess it was something that he thought fought yeast. That makes sense, but I don't know why. I don't know why I thought, I mean, maybe that was it. Maybe he observed that women were not complaining about yeast when they were on their period because they've got something bigger to deal with. Maybe. I don't know. And of course, and of course, there has to be the

psych perspective as there is on any woman's problem. At some point, there was a psychiatrist in history who had to tell us what he thought about it. Yeah, right. Cramping, which is guys, these men, you know how they are. Cramping was, is a common symptom of periods, a lot of women have cramping before and during their, their menstrual cycles. And it was seen as a psychological problem, not a physical one. And they advise that women have therapy

because she, a woman is rejecting her own femininity when she has cramps during a period. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that one is a misplace belief. Yeah, I mean. I don't know that. Guys, you're not doing great. Well, the king of this, of this,

let's see what Freud thought. Yeah. Great. Well, the king of this, of this, let's see what Freud thought. Yep. Freud thought that a period is, and this is a quote from him, the bloody sign of a woman's loss of a penis. I'm giving him a face. I'm assuming that's a figurative metaphorical. Just keeping my face.

I think he knew that women didn't actually like physically lose a penis. Yeah, but he just basically saw it as a sign of a further sign because there I guess there were others of women's inferiority in general. This show has made me not so big of an Freud. Yeah. Yeah, I don't agree with him on that one, Sid. On that one? On that one, you've got a problem. Yeah, he seemed to get, he was

seen to remember a lot of the stuff that Freud did right, but he seemed to be just kind of swinging every pitch, I think. And he whiffed a lot of them, I think. We tend to remember the great slams as they were to continue my sports metaphor that I understand. And it seems like there were a lot of whiffers. So let's talk about what what did we do? So we've talked a little bit about periods what do we do about them through history you know what women were bleeding they have to they tried to do something once they figured out that this was gonna happen every

month and that it probably wasn't an illness, they had to deal with it. So, early times, women probably just used what was available. There's been some evidence that women attempted to use things like animal skins, moss, ash, grass, sea sponges, wood shavings, just basically whatever you had. I would think moss might work, okay. Yeah, I mean, I think they were just looking for something absorbent.

Sure. The Egyptians used papyrus. There's another use for that. They were just showing off the infinite paper. What? You know what else we can use it for? Yeah, we can do everything with. It's amazing. I'm cleaning up a spill right now.

I'm writing you this letter on this papyrus and I'm also wiping my windows. Oh, what's up? You didn't hear about windows yet. I like that the Egyptians are basically like the guys who have been in a sham while now. Yeah. You can do everything with it paper. The Romans used wool and then but the Greeks are like forget just wool. We're gonna wrap some wool around some wood and use that which seems horribly uncomfortable on a side note. Yeah, I'm prominent. just will. We're going to wrap some wool around some wood and use that, which seems horribly

uncomfortable on a side note. Yeah, I'm prominent. Yeah. There were plenty of cultures and times in history, though, when women just kind of bled into their clothes, onto the ground, which I think is really interesting from a cultural perspective. If you can imagine that that was the truth today that women just walked around. It's going for it. It certainly changed relationship with men, perhaps. Yeah, I could make it hard to go to work. I'll tell you that. I think I'm full on in support of every sort of empowerment

that there is for women and minorities and anybody who's marginalized throughout the screen world of ours, I do think that would be a hard look to sell. I don't think there's a level of comfort where you say, what's that? Yeah, I'm just bleeding into my clothes today. Like it or want to be the day. That's my day. How's yours? Well, if it's a guy and like his hemorrhoids are flaring up that day,

we probably wouldn't be so cool with that. Look, right. So I think it goes both ways. And I mean, we also, you got to remember that in some of these times, when women just kind of went for it, men and women were separated, like if you look at like the biblical recommendations, like just stay away from women. And there are still cultures today

that just send women to a hut, the minstrel hut, and they just go hide away. So it's not like they're doing any of that. If you want to talk about, I mean, you mentioned earlier, and I was sort of goofing about it, but you want to talk about, I mean, you mentioned earlier, and I was sort of goofing about it, but you want to talk about why men are squeamish about periods. I think it's because we have two millennia of religious doctrine that says that it's something

to be afraid of and shamed and avoided adult costs. That kind of stuff can permeate a culture and be pretty hard to shake out imagine. I'm sure that's true because a lot of this, you know, like I said, still persists today in different places. I mean, I think that there is stigma about it, you know, even in our country. But if you go to, you know, some other cultures, the menstrual huts still exists. I mean, women are still sequestered and- It's right next to the sun glasses hot. Not as popular, but free Wi-Fi. So I don't know. In medieval times, they dealt with it by- there were again many women at the time who would just

have their period in their clothes. So they would wear like flowers or carry nutmeg to ward off the smell so that you wouldn't know. There was also a belief that you could stop it faster if you would burn a toad in a pot and then grind that into powder and then put that in a bag at your waist and carry it around, which I guess also would hide the smell because then you'd deal with the smell of a burnt powdered toad. Yeah, I'm not sure that's a step up. And that you could also deal with it or make it go away from it.

I mean, that's what the belief is that you can make it go way faster by doing that or by tying animal hair around the young tree, which I kind of like these beliefs because I mean, it's gonna stop probably for most women. It's gonna stop in a few days. So I mean, I guess it always works.

Well, that's similar to like, it's like cold treatments, right? Well, yeah, exactly. Hey, it's stopped. Well, yeah, it's stopped. It usually does. Yeah, that's similar to like it's like cold cold treatments, right? Well, yeah, exactly. Hey, it's stop. Well, yeah, I mean it usually does. Yeah, that's how it goes I talked about how difficult it would be to go to work if you weren't using some kind of you know Barrier between yourself and the ground while you're on your period and that certainly was one way that we dealt with it In the 1700s. I think this is great. No women worked in the opium industry in Saigon. Yeah, they were on tight ship there. No, they thought it would make the opium taste better

if you had a woman who was menstruating there. Okay. In 1800s in Europe, the women again, since they didn't use anything, they weren't allowed to work in the sugary fineries in France or in the pickling factories in the UK, which I don't think is a big sacrifice personally. Yeah.

I think it was pickling meat and I don't even know how that works. So I think if the biggest sacrifice I have to make is I can't pickle meat, I'm good with that. Yeah. I'm still sorry about that though. I think everybody should be able to pickle meat if they want to. If they want to. By the late 1800s, the first pads were created. It was interesting. Most

of them at the time, they didn't have, you know, the, there's adhesive on the back of pads. You might not know that. Sanitary napkins, they stick inside your underwear. Right. But they didn't have that. And so most of them were held in place by belts. They didn't even consistently have underwear yet. Where functioning fashion. So you would have these belts. You could make a homemade little muslin belt that you would wear with your pad. There were also, they moved on to some more absorbent things.

They started using the same material that they used diapers. They're these for diapers. And they also had things like period bloomers and period aprons I I can't even picture what those must have been like no no a whole ordeal is what I'm guessing The whole production the whole product. These are my period bloomers. Okay, I'm out Yeah, that seems like a whole production That's you know, maybe that's like a euphemism for like, I'm just having one of those bad like days where I'm just gonna lay on the couch. I'm in my period bloomers today.

Can't come to lunch. I'm already in my period bloomers. It's kind of like my cookie pants. In World War One, French nurses realized that the celluloid bandages that they use well for wounds also worked well for that. So they started using that, which expired for their pad technology.

Okay. A codex were invented soon for that. So they started using that, which expired further pad technology. Okay. Cotex were invented soon after that. And by 32, we had the menstrual cup. Finally, the answer to periods, it finally comes on the scene. I'm sorry, it was that long to invent them. Flash forward, flash forward 80 some years. And we are still using menstrual cups to that. Now, to be fair, there are some women who do use menstrual cups.

That's still a thing. It is still a thing. It's not something that I use personally, or I'm familiar with, but I've read about it. And there are menstrual cups, which are literally little flexible plastic cups. I've never, I've probably bought more tampons in the last 10 years than you have.

And I have never seen menstrual cups in the shelves. I have to imagine it's a, maybe a country by country thing and maybe it's just not pop, or maybe it's regional. Maybe it's not popular in this region. Because it wasn't something that as a young girl asking her mom what to do, you know, about getting her monthly visitor. I don't think she ever introduced to me

the concept of the menstrual cup, but it's out there and some women use it and you just kinda put it up inside your vagina and it catches all the blood as you may imagine. Ladies, if you at home use a menstrual cup or know someone who does, well, I mean, just keep going. What are you gonna do?

Ask us. You wanna ask them about it? I hope it's working for you. No, you don't have to share that private information. I mean, if you want to, but you can, we can refrain from that. What about tampons, said? The next year, 1933, tampons finally came around. Someone said, this is ridiculous.

Saving us all from belts that went with our pads and... Bloomer's special bloopers. Special bloopers. And special period bloopers. So tampons are born and then of course today we have a variety of colors and styles and all kinds of commercials, women dancing and doing yoga to demonstrate how well they work. If they're not eating yogurt, they're not being bothered by their period solution.

The only other time you see women having that much fun in a commercial is when they have herpes. Is that everything, Sid? That's the whole topic. I mean, I think there's no modern concept of menstruation. Like I said, it's not an illness, so I guess we cleared that up for you. And I did it. Yes, I got through an entire episode of

administration and didn't say anything completely stupid and embarrassed myself. So I feel really good. That's, it was a real high-wire act there folks. I want to thank my dad, my mom, everybody. He's helped to shape me throughout my life. Hey, you did open the show by calling periods in illness. That was a bit. Everybody knew that was a bit. No, I did it. And I'm so proud of myself. I'm also proud of you I'm really proud of me

That was a tough one and a hung in there and gosh, I just couldn't I'm ready to pop so proud That's that's really great. Thank you. This is your biggest accomplishment. You'd say a week to date. Yes To date lazy gentleman. Thank you so much for listening to our show of sawdones. We hope you enjoyed it. We're here every Tuesday. Thank you to Sarah and Emma, both of whom suggest administration is a topic. Yeah, you guys have been clamoring for this. And so here it is.

Here you go. And all it's going to be. Everybody enjoy. If you'd like to suggest a historical medical topic for us to talk about, email us, sawbonesatmaximumfun.org. What's that I said, maximumfun.org? Well, yes, that's where you can find all the shows on the maximum fun network like Jordan Jesse Ghost, hot podcasting yourself, judge John Hodgman. My brother, my brother and me.

Oh, thank you so much. I really do. Always. Oh, always. Even though you're trying to steal our Tuesday thunder. Sorry, I just messed it up. I we we relate There's a new episode movie in the band if you want to go listen to that uh after you're done here and you tell a bunch of people to listen our show of course

uh thank you people uh tweeting about our show like Ethan Horn Rowan white and Nicole Mike D Rick Butler Chris Sparks Brian Lippman uh Brian Kelly Jay Jay Butler, Georgiana Penny, Donald Fall, Bill Smith, Cassie, Jenna, Sarah, Gus, Devon, Andy, so many others. Thank you so much. Thanks for tweeting at us. You can tweet at Justin, if you want to, at Justin McElroy. And she's at Sydney McElroy, S-Y-D-N-E-E, MC-E-L-R-O-Y. I want to thank Dave Lavender from Harold Lispatch. He did a great piece about us in the newspaper on Sunday

at the whole front page of the life section. That's right. He took adorable pictures. You're drinking from the same soda. Do you remember that? Yeah, I remember. Thank you, you were great. It was like an archie comic.

Thanks, Laurie. She took the pictures for the article. And you can find those on our Twitter feed where at saw bones And you can go follow us there and look for the link to that because I tweeted it and I think that's gonna do it for us If you get a chance this week if you could head over to iTunes give us a review and tell some friends about the show gosh We'd share appreciate it And I think that's gonna do it for us Until next Tuesday. I'm just Macaroid.

I'm Sydney Macaroid. And as always, don't drill a hole in your head. Alright! Maximumfund.org Comedy and Culture, Artist Owned Listener Supported