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

Episode Date: June 30, 2019

We all know that consuming wine has no downsides whatsoever, but did you know it also has some amazing health benefits as well?! It's true! (Depending on your definition of "benefits" ... and "health"... and ... OK, and "amazing" too. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 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. Hello everybody and welcome to Sobhones, Emerald to Robins Guide in Medicine.
Starting point is 00:01:08 I'm your co-host Justin McElroy. Oh! Oh! And I'm Sydney McElroy. Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!
Starting point is 00:01:20 Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Thank you. No, no, no, that's fine. It's fine, stop. It's fine, it's fine. It's fine. It's fine.
Starting point is 00:01:32 It's fine. It's fine. I'm laughing on the outside. You know, paggoliacci, the clown, the sad clown. That's why he cried. Because his wife got more applause than I did. Anyway, um, Hi, and welcome to Saul Bowen's
Starting point is 00:01:45 Beryl Turf, Miss Guy Medicine. I'm still Justin McRae, that's the Sidster. And we are here in California, uh, more specifically San Jose, which, as I understand it, is near the Santa Cruz Mountains, if that's... I can't. And that, my friends, that's why I'm kind of drunk. I know what you're thinking.
Starting point is 00:02:12 The J-Man normally drink horses' neck, which is a brandy and ginger-yle, the little bit of bitters. And the answer is he used to. And now, I'm a wine guy. Folks, I'm here to tell you, this is my 87th glass now I'm a wine guy. Folks, I'm here to tell you, this is my 87th glass of wine in my entire life.
Starting point is 00:02:30 It's really a very recent, recent bit. Very recent, very recent. I mean, it's been a few months, but this is the 87th glass I've had to give you sort of a, you know, idea of how deep I am in the scene. But here, we are here in one country, San Cruz Mountains mainly for a say with me.
Starting point is 00:02:50 Four different, it's peanut mar, Cabernet, seven, your one. Shard and, and, et cetera, the other rest is like et cetera. I don't know anything about wine. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:03:08 I read some about the Santa Cruz Mountain region. I don't know what could be there before he came out. Just about your wine growing. It's extremely beautiful country up there. I can see from the street. Assuming that large elevation is the Santa Cruz Mountains. Now folks, listen, I'm not an ass. Now, I don't know anything about different types of wine and what's good or not, because,
Starting point is 00:03:34 like I said, I drink beer. But I do know about medicine and medical history, and I know that for as long as humans have been making wine, really any alcohol, but wine specifically, we have been trying to find a reason to drink it other than that we like it, and especially a reason that it might be good for us. So I do want to share with you the history of wine as medicine, especially in the ancient world, because they put wine,
Starting point is 00:04:08 I mean everywhere, like everywhere. Gross. Are you ready for that? Sounds great. And you make it sound gross. We have, we as humans, have been making wine since the Neolithic period. They found like traces of wine and like jars and pots and things.
Starting point is 00:04:30 But at least since the Egyptians, we have been trying to find a medicinal value to wine. A reason that we can convince everybody like, oh, it's not just for fun though, it's for my health. I need this. It's for good. In ancient Egypt, wine was viewed as both a beverage and a food. It had nutritional value. What?
Starting point is 00:04:53 I'm going to go ahead and download Uber now. Just so you're like, ready? We don't need to be getting on that serious. Uh, and I think that's kind of fair in the sense that, like, wine is from grapes. And I always argue that beer, it's just like bread. Like it's like a side of bread with my meal, so it's like a fruit. That's, you're talking like people with a problem, talk, scream. So they would use wine sometimes just like...
Starting point is 00:05:29 Just like a side of bread. Just like as a solvent or like a way to disguise the bad taste of a medicine, it was very popular for that. But then in addition to that, they also thought it was good for you just in and of itself. Some uses for wine. It might be good for a cough. It was a popular cough syrup. Just drink some wine if you got a cough. If your appetite has gone, if you need to restore your appetite, wine was a good appetite restore. That I can vouch for, I've had a lot of, I've had a lot of late night bowls of fruit loops that will attest to, Deffo, Deffo does that.
Starting point is 00:06:09 They used it for fevers, they used it for wounds a lot, both drinking wine if you got a wound. I think just, it's like, oh man, you got a wound. Here. Here's some wine. And also for like soaking bandages in and dressing wounds with wine or flushing wound out, generally it was thought to clean things.
Starting point is 00:06:29 I mean, and this was before any idea of like, we're killing germs would have been behind it. It was more just like, I probably cleans it out. And it was also, as it was written, it was good for releasing a child from the belly of a woman, which basically meant... What is it like a looper count? No. Oh, no, no, no, it's bait.
Starting point is 00:06:53 Come on out, baby. It's time to party, baby. Baby, let's get crunk, get out here, baby. No, it was more like a person who is in labor like, hey, do you maybe want a drink? That looks painful. Hey, how about some wine? We're working with a little millennia from anesthesia. Why?
Starting point is 00:07:19 Largely it was reserved for nobility. So the common people would stick with beer. So I guess that's me. But royalty. Royalty would drink wine. I am the son of 1998's funniest man in the tri-state. So kind of like a... APPLAUSE
Starting point is 00:07:44 Punic to royalty. A prince of comedy. I guess you could say My prince of West Virginia. Prince of West Virginia so and the During feasts they would allow everybody to drink wine during feasts and like like big the festivals of the god There were certain times of the year where everybody would like get access to the good stuff and everybody would be able to drink wine. And they didn't really have a problem with drunkenness and we'll see this shift later in ancient history.
Starting point is 00:08:14 For the Egyptians, drunkenness was just a sign that like you were happy and you were filled with joy and you must have had means to buy the wine, so like, good on you. Successful day at the office. Good job. They actually had, once a year, a festival of intoxication. We call it spring break these days.
Starting point is 00:08:41 And this is a departure, a little bit, from medical history, but I just like the story. The festival intoxication was to celebrate goddess Segment, who was sent to destroy a bunch of humans who were not like being appropriately, they weren't worthy of raw. And so raw was like, you need to kill those mortals. So Segment came down to kill a bunch of mortals, and her bloodlust took over, and she just started murdering all the humans. And in order to stop her, they put some wine out, and since it looked like blood, it tricked her. And so she got
Starting point is 00:09:18 really drunk, and then felt really happy, and so she's like, all right, I'll let the rest of you all live. So it's to celebrate the time that all of humanity did not get destroyed. They get really drunk. I have actually pulled that stuff on city before if I mess up bad enough. So that's actually, I can vouch for this strategy. There was even one temple had what was called the porch of drunkenness. He just
Starting point is 00:09:48 hang out on the porch to some flycapsigals. As we move into ancient Greece, the Greeks were at least aware that, you know, wine is great. We love it. We're all about it. But there are some problems with drinking a lot of it. They began to see that intoxication wasn't always a good thing and that drinking too much wine could cause some health problems. Now, that didn't mean that they didn't still use it as medicine. Hypocrity saw many uses for wine in various health problems. And all of the doctors that kind of studied in his tradition
Starting point is 00:10:25 also advise the same thing. He thought that wine mainly affected two parts of the body. The first would be the head, and that makes sense. You get drunk in toxication, so it affects the brain, the head. The other was the lower cavity. Go on. Mm-hmm. By warming it.
Starting point is 00:10:48 And it's really just the abdomen. I know. It sounds a lot sexier than this. I don't think sexier means what you think it makes it. It doesn't mean lower cavity. No, man. That man, it doesn't. So wine generally was seen as a hot and dry substance.
Starting point is 00:11:10 And this is in the humoral system of medicines. So basically, you have four humors. We have to keep them in balance. And the way we balance them is by eating and drinking certain things, or puking, or peeing, or taking a laxative, that kind of thing. And wine was something that was hot and dry, so if you had some sort of health condition that was seen as cold and wet, wine would fix that.
Starting point is 00:11:31 So it's- Because it was hot and dry. This is easy. Come on folks. And they also thought it was good if you needed a laxative, because if you drink enough wine, you get diarrhea, apparently. This one's the least. This one's great, yeah, folks. That's great. This one's great, yeah, folks. Now, it was very specific.
Starting point is 00:11:50 The usefulness of wine, exactly what you should use it for and who should drink it and how much. It really varied on the types of wine. By this point, we have lots of different types of wine. I mean, I imagine wine is beyond just white and red, just in my wine expert. Yes, for my 89th glass of wine, I am planning on having a red, and there's different kinds of reds. Good job.
Starting point is 00:12:14 So... That's close as the wine segment of our program. Based on the color or the taste or the odor or where it came from, where it was made, it would have certain medicinal properties that were good or bad. Everyone pretty much agreed that kids don't benefit as much from wine. They don't benefit as much.
Starting point is 00:12:41 That's exactly right. So they said, we got to be careful. Wine is a very potent beverage, and we have to be careful with it in children. So just mix it with a lot of water. When you give it to your kid, they agreed that the elderly benefit the most from wine. Correct.
Starting point is 00:12:58 And by elderly, I do mean over 30, so. I'm folks. It was a rough time, okay. People with cold constitutions, because in the human system of medicine, not only were certain things able to influence your body, but you had like a natural temperament. You were naturally either hot or cold. You were naturally either hot or cold. You were naturally either dry or wet. And people who were just cold people were thought to benefit more from wine.
Starting point is 00:13:31 Somebody who was like a fleagmatic person would be, and these are the different like humoral personalities, would be a very cold and wet person. And people who are from cold places, women were seen as being more wet and cold. So. So. OK, I'm going to say perfectly motionless.
Starting point is 00:13:51 Just let me know which has moved on. So they were advised to drink wine more than men, you know. Some other particular, you can move now. Okay, sure. All right. Some other particular uses, dark wine, was thought to, let's say that a couple is trying to conceive, and you want to make sure that the baby is strong,
Starting point is 00:14:23 a very strong baby, then the man drinking dark wine was supposed to be very helpful for that. It was also supposed to be specifically darker wines good for nose bleeds. It was thought to kind of replace the blood. Makes sense. It was also good for if you, let's say, as a doctor, you bled somebody, because that was a popular treatment of the time, right? Any illness will just bleed you, we'll cut you
Starting point is 00:14:52 and let some blood out, and then you'll be better. But maybe you took it too far. I know. And the person passed out, or... Coward. Almost died. Then give them some wine. And it really was thought, like like it kind of looks like blood.
Starting point is 00:15:07 This probably helps you make blood. Probably. Oh. So medicines, medicines, that ask you make my coffee for the mouth. And right now folks, we are headed back to the program and hope you enjoy it. Also, it could just be used for aches. Now this one works.
Starting point is 00:15:29 This one I'm 38 years old now. This one I get a test there. Or weakness, whatever you want to take that to mean. Are you feeling achy? Are you feeling weak? You get some wine from your doctor. Specifically, Hippocrates noted that it was very good for a certain type of headache,
Starting point is 00:15:50 and that was the headache that you would get after you had been drunk the night before. My dude. My dude knew that a party. Hippocrates said for that specific headache that follows in toxication, wine can actually really help. Now this one I can address. He prescribed it to help people throw up if he thought balancing your humors, balancing
Starting point is 00:16:19 your humors would involve you throwing up. He was actually wine until you do. Go with um, Diet Mountain Diagnom Doo Code Red and vodka for that. That's gonna get you there a lot quicker. That one I can't. He prescribed it for making people pee. So let's say you don't, you're not pee.
Starting point is 00:16:40 Well, yeah. Okay. Fine. Okay. They had very specific rules about a pregnant person and wine. And specifically, if a person becomes pregnant, they should not drink wine for one to two days. And then they should continue drinking wine as well.
Starting point is 00:17:01 LAUGHTER One to two days for what? When? Which one of two days? This is the after conception, they said. After? Okay. So how have you figured that out?
Starting point is 00:17:13 You have, you know, I've conceived. Don't drink wine for 24 to 48 hours, and then just go for it. I like, you know what I like about that? Is though 24 to 48 hours, one to two days. I like party person who's like, you know what I like about that? Is though, 24 to 48 hours, one to two days. I like party person who's like, well, eh, it's been 24 hours. I'm probably fine.
Starting point is 00:17:32 I don't know. I don't want to err on the side of caution and wait out one other entire day. This kid's got to learn to be tough. They also had a very particular prescription for wine drinking in someone who was breastfeeding. They thought that the wine would pass through the breast milk to the baby, and the concern, again, there's nothing to do with alcohol content.
Starting point is 00:17:55 This was really about, it was a strong substance to put into your body. It had a lot of effects, you know, rearranging your humors. And so all of that passing through the milk to the baby could be dangerous was the fear. So in the beginning, they would recommend nursing a child, you should drink wine every three days. And then every other day. And by the time that the baby is 40 days old,
Starting point is 00:18:23 you can drink wine every day. But as soon as you can, you should bump that up to twice every day. Yes. Yes. Because by then, the baby can handle the wine. Yes. And it will make them stronger.
Starting point is 00:18:37 Yes. Yes. Yes. I don't think mortality rates were so bad back then. I think their mortality rates were bad, because everybody was partying so hard. They're like, yeah. Everybody was drinking a lot of wine.
Starting point is 00:18:53 I was drinking a lot of wine. And you know what? By the way, it's funny that that breast milk thing did not actually, that was still kind of kicking around when we had charlotte. That the worry of breast drinking and drinking. Oh yeah, how much we'll get through. Yeah, yeah, like little strips. You're seeing that these strips. You're supposed to test the breast milk with to see like have you drunk too much a very small amount of alcohol It's wow this is yeah, so and they'll still tell you but they do so they do know I'm nothing that they do still tell you to drink
Starting point is 00:19:21 You're a parent it's tough That's funny. They do they it's switched to beer. That's what, it's tough. It's funny, they do. It's switched to beer. That's what I was told, drink dark beer. They sell hubbier supply. Yeah. It doesn't. It doesn't.
Starting point is 00:19:33 I'm not saying you can't. Hubbier supply. Party. Hope your party supply. You're a good cheer. It will relax you. Hiphocardies waffled a lot on what kind of wine was better for different things.
Starting point is 00:19:43 Because like I said, they had very specific like prescriptions based on the type of wine and the person and what was wrong with them. But at one point, he had a patient who had typhus and he said, let him drink hard, dark wine if it benefits the patient, if not a hard, white wine mixed with water. And then he had another patient with typhus and he said, let him drink white wine mixed with water if it benefits the patient. And if not, a hard dark wine. So basically just like drink some wine
Starting point is 00:20:13 if you have typhus I think is the practical upshute. They very commonly would mix water with wine. I've said that several times and that actually wasn't uncommon because the wines that were made were very strong both in flavor and alcohol content. So diluting your wine was not a wild idea. It wasn't just doctors prescribing it because undiluted wine, just pure wine was seen as a lot more powerful. So you had to be careful if you were going to drink undiluted wine. Hypocrite's in particular thought a very watery wine was the best way to go. So I don't know if that makes sense.
Starting point is 00:20:51 It doesn't actually. I mean, or medicinal standpoint. He thought it was very good for fevers because it wouldn't upset your head and it would also help you get all the flam out of you. I hope you cough up all the flam. Okay. So you could mix it with other things
Starting point is 00:21:06 other than just water. Honey was very popular. Milk was very popular. I don't know, milk and wine. I've never tried that. I can't imagine that tastes good. There were a lot of herbal preparations wine with different herbs,
Starting point is 00:21:21 like steeped in it sometimes, for different medicinal reasons. One in particular was something called kikian, and this one was a, you take a black grape, the inside of a pomegranate, you crush it, and you mix it in a dark wine, and then you scrape in some goat cheese. You ruined that.
Starting point is 00:21:40 And then you sprinkle that with roasted wheat flour, and then mix it up and drink it. No! And that was, that particular prescription was for postpartum diarrhea. Very specific. So embarrassing because if people see goat cheese and lime and palm and granite laying on your counter. They know. They know.
Starting point is 00:22:05 You know, what's up? A very fancy diarrhea cure. Oh, I see. Someone can stop going to the bathroom. Uh-huh. Just like with the Egyptians, wine was popular to put on wounds as well. So once again, any kind of wound you sustained, you could just dump wine in it, open fractures.
Starting point is 00:22:29 So like when you break a bone and it pokes out through the skin, dumping wine on that was a very popular treatment. Soaking bandages again was one thing. You could also flush out pretty much any orifice with wine. And it was thought to help clean it. So it was not uncommon for a uterus to be flushed with wine. Both for not having a period when you thought you were going to or having a period when you weren't thought
Starting point is 00:23:06 when you didn't think you were going to both could be treated with a wine A lot of people ask me which wine should I choose for this and that what I always tell them is Don't flush your uterus with any wine you wouldn't drink yourself That's a good rule of thumb. Don't get the cheap stuff, folks. There was one specific note made of, at one point, somebody was thought to have a lot of, they're right, had a lot of pus in their lung, and the only way they knew how to get it out was to cut them open
Starting point is 00:23:38 and try to drain it out. They're not that far off. They just, you know, didn't have like sterile technique and stuff, so the patient probably didn't make it. But that aside, you just have to have no way of knowing. You don't have to throw that in. Just say, what a problem. I'm a maybe.
Starting point is 00:23:52 They probably beefed it anyway, moving on. But they noted that after you do that, flushing the lung with wine was a good idea. That is not a good idea. My favorite was, we've talked about on the show before the concept of hysteria, which was like a fake diagnosis for like, that's a woman doing something I don't like.
Starting point is 00:24:14 She's hysterical. And the idea was that you're uterus is moving around your body and, you know, making you all wild. And so one popular treatment for that was to get some wine and put it in a heated clay jar and then sit on it. It's like a wine fumigation. Because the uterus will be attracted to the wine
Starting point is 00:24:44 and work its way back down into place. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha It is a little cartoon thing, it starts wafting on the set, just floating it off, like a pie cooling in a window. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha It was also of course just a... Oh, as I have to say every show, I'm sorry. Just to I have to say, every show, I'm sorry. Just to everybody who's not like me exactly,
Starting point is 00:25:09 I'm sorry about that, sorry. Well, but that you could also use it for everybody with a rectum could use it. You could use it as an anima. So that was a popular wine anima, especially mixed with honey and oil. It was supposed to be good for congestion. A bottle of milk, really.
Starting point is 00:25:29 Yes. There was a poultice made out of wine that was good for wounds. It had wine and watercress and flax. Honey and wine was put in the eyes. Any problem with your eyes, they would just mix it and drip that in your eyes. I don't know which part of that is worse. If you're having any sort of anal problem, hemorrhoid.
Starting point is 00:25:52 Okay, I'm listening. Everybody shut up. Burning. What you want to do. Perfect, listen. So what you're gonna wanna do is boil some eggs in a dark wine and then apply that to your anus. And that'll fix that. And then for tetanus you just want to soak some leaves in some white wine and put them on the wound. And then you're
Starting point is 00:26:32 good. Of course moving moving forward to the Romans, you can't talk about wine and not talk about the Romans. They love the stuff. It was a daily beverage. Everybody was drinking wine any time of the day. And it the stuff. It was a daily beverage. Everybody was drinking wine any time of the day. And it was consumed a lot more generally. Like at this point, everybody was drinking wine. It wasn't just for royalty. Everybody liked wine. Again, we're still dealing with a lot stronger wine, so the concept of watering down wine would not be strange. A lot of people would do that. They added lots of new indications for wine, lots of new reasons.
Starting point is 00:27:08 You might need to drink it. Any kind of bloating, constipation, diarrhea, gal, bad breath. Snake bite. Taperum, dizziness, anything. Drink some wine. There was a specific recipe for a laxative where you had to, like, in this start it, man, you have to know you need a laxative way in advance
Starting point is 00:27:34 for this one, because you've got to grow the grape vines and treat them with ashes and manure and hellbore. And then once you've, like, grown the vines and you have the grapes, then you make the wine, and then you can drink that wine, and it's a laxative. You're gonna look smart, though, when your neighbor's coming call in, like, hey, listen, I meant to do this a few years ago,
Starting point is 00:27:55 and I did, but did you make me grow your vines in hellbore? And then... Gaelin liked to use wine in a lot of, he treated gladiators and he would basically use wine for anything that happened to the gladiators and he would, he would tell you that it worked because he claimed to have never lost a single one that he treated, everybody survived.
Starting point is 00:28:21 But he would again pour wine on any kind of wound they sustained and even with like, let's say he had to do a abdominal surgery, you wouldn't have done abdominal surgery. Somebody had a big gaping abdominal wound that, like, exposed their intestines. He would just soak them in some wine, and then... Barry them. No, just, like, stuff them back into place. I mean, I'm assuming he did, because he says they all survived.
Starting point is 00:28:47 Didn't say how long. Anyway, good luck, bye. Another successful patient. His version of a Theriac, which a Theriac was like a cure all from the time. And it's, there are many, many different stereotypes that were made throughout history by different physicians and there were like different traditions of the area. And it usually was something that contained
Starting point is 00:29:11 50 or 60 different ingredients and was very complicated but was thought to be the antidote to everything, the cure for everything. He had his own the area that was based on wine. It had like 60 total ingredients, but wine was the big one. He also included herbs, opium, and viper flesh. that was based on wine. It had like 60 total ingredients, but wine was the big one. He also included herbs, opium, and viper flesh.
Starting point is 00:29:30 Nice. And everybody thought it was just great. Marcus Aurelius loved it. But this this theriac that he created like would continue to persist throughout history for, I mean centuries afterwards, this recipe for Wine-based Theriac for anything. And again, he also believed that wine turned into blood once you drank it, so he said,
Starting point is 00:29:54 it's probably good for anything that's wrong with like veins, arteries, the heart. Oh, that's so good. Any blood. Any blood issues. The last figure from ancient history who had a lot to say about wine, we got to mention is Pliny the Elder. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:30:11 I couldn't, I could do an entire show alone on what Pliny the Elder said about wine because he wrote in his book Natural History he wrote extensively about the cultivation of wine and the different regions and what was good and what was bad and what was bad, and just some like general wine advice. And then also all of the medicinal uses,
Starting point is 00:30:30 like there's an entire book within the collection that is dedicated to medicinal uses for wine. He did note that it was good to cure disease, but it also could be used to access and cause problems. He thought it improved, again, blood, vigor, your complexion, you looked better, you were more attractive, you had more friends, if you drink wine. He said that wine drinkers tend to be more robust and ready than everybody else. It strengthens the sinews.
Starting point is 00:31:06 He thought it was great for your stomach. He thought it was very good for any sort of mental illness. So depression or anxiety or insomnia or if you're just going through an extended grieving period. You know, it may seem that way, Plenty. Oh, okay. It may seem like it, Plenty, but it's not a long-term solution, plenty. He thought it was good for any poisonous fungi.
Starting point is 00:31:32 It was good for that. It does help me be a fungi. That I can attest to. That was a great dad joke. And then of course, he not only wanted you to drink it, but you could put it all over your body. If you have a heart problem, just like rub some on your chest. Sure, topple.
Starting point is 00:31:54 That seems good. Bathing the genitals in it was always a good option. Plenty of love to do that stuff. And, and, and, in addition to, to any could go on and on. I mean, really, he used it for, he recommended it for everything, but in addition to all that, he also was the one who said in Vino Veritas, which I didn't realize. A figure. So, you know, but it was more of like a warning, like be careful, you're really drunk and
Starting point is 00:32:18 you say things that are true, but you shouldn't say them. Wine continued to be important, like throughout the ancient world, it was all like wine's great, everybody loves it. After that, especially because of religious influences, wine was still used for some like digestive purposes, and it's a disinfectant, but it's used for everything started to wane, and especially with like the temperance movement,
Starting point is 00:32:42 it, you know, wine, there were medicinal wines that were sold during prohibition. So it was like a sneaky secret way to get wine. Like, oh, it's medicinal, but eventually people stopped buying it. This was kind of revived. This idea that wine's really good for you in the 90s with what was called the French paradox.
Starting point is 00:33:00 The idea that French people live a lot longer and they're a lot healthier. And do we think it's because they drink a bunch of wine? And this was very popular, and there was a point where like doctors were recommending like, hey, you're doing everything right except start drinking. Specifically, red wine was thought to be good. And when I was first trained, I was told the same thing.
Starting point is 00:33:17 But red wine's probably good for people. So if somebody's a T totaler, you should advise them to start drinking. We've kind of gone away from that now. Yeah. And I'm not saying that've kind of gone away from that now. Yeah. And I'm not saying that any amount of wine is bad for you, but I'm not necessarily saying that wine is good for you either. But I'm not saying that.
Starting point is 00:33:34 In moderation, for a lot of people, it can be safe. But the days of us recommending that, hey, you're healthy, except you should drink more wine or probably long gone. So, well, that's a bummer. And you're drinking white anyway, so. Yeah, but I like to live on the edge, you know me, so. Folks, that's gonna do for us for this week. I wanna say thank you to you for coming here.
Starting point is 00:34:04 Thanks to Tax Payersers for these sort of song Medicines is the intro and outro of our program. Thank you to our dear friend Paul who is exemplary human being one of the few people I like also warm and You can check his music out at pollenstorm.xxx and that is gonna do it for us, folks, so until next week, my name is Justin McAroy.
Starting point is 00:34:28 I'm Sydney McAroy. And it's always, don't drill a hole in your head. Alright! Maximumfun.org Comedy and Culture Artistone? Audience supported. I listened to Reading Glasses because Bria and Mallory have great tips. You're a comics reader and you want to use a library-connected app. You can try out hoopla.
Starting point is 00:35:06 I listened for the other interviews. I'm mad at myself that I waited as long as I did to start reading Joan Dittyon. They give me reading advice. I didn't even know I needed. If you go in person to an event and go up to an author or a filmmaker or anybody and tell them what they you don't like about their work, you're a trash baby. I look, I understand you didn't like hero season three, that's fine.
Starting point is 00:35:27 I don't actually need to know that information. I'm Bria Grant, and I'm Mallory O'Mara. We're reading glasses, and we solve all your bookish problems. Every Thursday on Maximum Fun.

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