Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Vomitoria

Episode Date: November 7, 2018

A vomitorium was a place where ancient Romans went to make themselves throw up after gorging themselves at a sumptuous banquet. Everybody knows that. Except that’s not true at all. Learn about what vomitoria were in this episode and impress your friends.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey friends when you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lisa in Manitoba who got the idea to Airbnb the backyard guest house over childhood home now The extra income helps pay her mortgage. So yeah, you might not realize it But you might have an Airbnb to find out what your place could be earning at air bnb.ca Hey and welcome to the shorty. I'm Josh. There's Chuck. There's Jerry We don't say last names on these because we're crunched for time Does that mean we need to say welcome to the long form when it comes to the other ones? Mm-hmm. All right I think that's a great idea changes good, but you have to roll your L welcome to the

Wrong for whoa, I didn't know you're so good at that or wait. There's a L and an R in there Let's see if I can do it. Welcome to the How is that you look like and sound like you're underwater and eating peanut butter Speaking of eating peanut butter Did you know that in ancient Rome if you ate a couple of gallons of peanut butter? It was very acceptable mm-hmm to stroll on over to a vomitorium and And throw it up and stick a feather down your throat or have sorry have some young child stick a feather down your throat or bill Murray So you could

So you could throw up and then eat even more peanut butter. That's right Chuck. That's an indisputable fact of history Not true No, and you know what something was bugging me researching this. I was like I feel like I've said something Like on the podcast before where I referenced this being Correct, and it probably wasn't I probably did but I'm in pretty good company because we've got this idea That that yeah in ancient Rome. It was totally normal to go throw up basically binge and purge Yeah, but purge in like a public area that's designated to go purge That's that's been around for at least since the 1920s and we can trace it all the way back to algeous

Huxley actually who who created this misconception. Yeah, I mean I thought this was a true fact up until Two days ago. Basically everyone does so don't feel bad again. You're in the company of algeous Huxley How are you pronouncing that? Huxley not the first name algeous algeous. What do you pronounce it as deletrious? I think you're swapping the you and the oh Aldo was Aldous, I think it's Aldous. Oh, I like algeous. All right. I've rechristened him. Well, he was a very algeous person I don't know what that word means. I just made it up. Okay, good cuz I was really embarrassed for a second

Yeah, so apparently well, let's go back to Rome to quote the great Frank Black in the Catholic song Mm-hmm Vomitoria, which is the pull of Vomitorium there were these things in ancient Rome apparently Yes, but it was just a very well to my ear weird name for a very Now common thing Yeah, and they actually know who was the first to reference is a guy named Macrobius back in the 4th century CE He just used it as a term to describe Basically a passage into and out of say like the Colosseum Where people would be

disgorged Out that's such a gross word into like like you've been to Colosseum, right? To the Colosseum. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay, same here. It's an amazing place And there's there's just a lot of walking space That's actually really effectively designed and one of the reasons why it's so effectively designed is because Of these passageways To basically to your seat and then back out into the main walkway around the perimeter inside the the Colosseum Yeah, those places in and out between the two those are Vomitoria. Yeah, what's what do we call them today?

It's a not a portal, but a Portico maybe no, I mean, it's just like it's like any modern stadium design. It's the the Hallway open thing that you walk through and then you're like now I'm in the stadium What do you call that? Concourse? No, I think we should just go back to calling it Vomitoria Yeah, I'm gonna say that next time I go to a Falcons game. Yeah. Hey, meet me at the Vomitoria 244 Pardon me. Can you direct me to my Vomitorium? I can't think of the word. It's really bugging me

I know what you're talking about and I want to say it's like portal to I mean it is a portal Maybe some people call them that but I think that's what they're called in like sports. Yeah So there were 76 of these though Around up and down the Colosseum and apparently did you say how many people that they could shuttle in and out of there yet? No, apparently 50,000 people could get in and out of this thing And like to their seats within about 15 minutes. It's not bad. That's amazing Can you imagine the poor Schmo who had to sit there and time it by looking at the Sun? Oh

So many went blind Until it finally happened. They'd have to replace the person every 30 seconds. There were a carton of a way to be like I got to 30 seconds What is the name of those things Bug me. I don't know Uh, should we take a break and talk about Aldous Huxley again? I'll do us. All right, right after this On the podcast hey, dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor stars of the cult classic show Hey, dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces

We're gonna use hey, dude as our jumping off point But we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it It's a podcast packed with interviews co-stars friends and non-stop references to the best decade ever Do you remember going to blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair Do you remember AOL instant messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper Because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing

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If you do you've come to the right place because I'm here to help this I promise you Oh, god Seriously, I swear and you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you Oh, man And so my husband Michael Um, hey, that's me Yep, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step Oh, not another one

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I mean, I guess he just heard of it before and basically he he mentions the impassing in a single line He wrote a comic novel Called Antique Hay is about post world war one decadent like upper upper class society And um, he just basically mentioned like a goth coming into a vomitorium and um I from the line I saw it didn't even really Seem to be like he was talking about the goth was going to come throw up or anything like that Um, but that was the first instance they could find if somebody

Using it not in the way that macrobius was was using it as that portal thingy, right? So so they think that he was the first one to say this or put it down and pen to paper And you have to give him a break because he just injected a tremendous amount of lst into his own eye Before he started writing this, right? So we're going to excuse him The next person who gets zero excuse whatsoever is lewis mumford Yeah, he was a historian. He was a critic. He should have known better. He did not do his research apparently had been reading alduis huxley and Just basically cited it as fact in one of his books the city in history. Yeah, and he he full on defined it as

Uh, where you overeat and you go and make yourself throw up and he just made that up Yeah, as a fan of huxley's I guess I guess so I don't think he ever took a drop of acid either. He has zero excuse lewis mumford does Uh, well, here's the thing though, and this is where it does get kind of gross because Even though they did not originate in ancient Rome. Mm-hmm. There are real Uh, vomitoriums apparently in places like vietnam And I look this up and I was trying to find a picture and I did find one

And it looks like where you would go to the sink and wash up in a public bathroom But it has It looks like a tiny Toilet bowl like it's got the shape of a toilet bowl on a you know, like waist high Right and then above this at least this one it had a little tiny toilet tank even It looked like a miniature toilet except waist high So I saw one that was like a big stainless steel sink with like one of those Like dishwasher like you have you ever washed dishes for a living? Oh, yeah, that was my first job

So, you know, that's right. We talked about that. Didn't you rat out like everybody and jays barbecue? I didn't rat out anybody. What are you talking about? What was it? I worked at jjs I was a busboy and dishwasher, but they stuck their tennis shoe and like the brunswick stew or something awful like that Yeah, but I didn't rat him out. I should have Okay, yeah, so anyway, um So, you know like the dishwashing sink thing, uh-huh the uh faucet Yes, it had like one of those So I guess you're expected to rinse the sink out after you vomit into it

But the way you know what you're doing and I saw your picture too Um, is there's a sign like a like a road sign type graphic of of somebody throwing up Yeah And that's how you know to use it. So it's like it's like fiction Fiction became reality. Yeah. So like it has someone kind of been over heaving out You know graphic spew Great band name, right? They're sort of they opened up for guar for a while. Oh, man. I'll bet actually I did see a band called Vomitorium. Oh, I'm sure

Graphic spew though man alive But apparently all over Ho Chi Minh City you can find these things And some of them even have Um Like pictures of ancient Rome and stuff. I guess is a nod To the false claim that they started in ancient Rome. I know my head's about to pop And what about germany that gets even grosser? So this article on how stuff works says that they're puke pans They're known

Coal locally as a puke pans. Not true. The only place I saw that on the internet is in this how stuff works article But there are vomitoriums in germany. There's a place called Hofbrow house in munich That's a beer hall that's known to have a lot of I've been there Oh, really? I've been to the Hofbrow house. Did you see the vomitorium? No, I'm sorry the puke pan. I did all my puking in the potted plants. Oh, there you go. I think that's That's gauche man. That's like wearing white after labor day. No, so there is one at the Hofbrow house supposedly That's what I saw on trip advisor. So our article claiming that in german frat houses that First of all, I didn't know germany had fraternities. That's got to be yeah

This this whole thing just stinks of misconception. Yeah Well, their source was antique dash photos No, whatever that is. It's a crystal link site. I think So at the very least we know that in germany there are designated puke places And anyone who's I mean, I guess I mean, first of all, you shouldn't be drinking so much that you regularly throw up anyway That's point number one, but uh If you've ever been in a bathroom stall and walked in like oh boy, I got a pee

And it's just got vomit everywhere. It's one of the worst experiences you can have as a human Yeah, especially if you don't have to pee but have to poop. Oh, we'll forget it. It's like train spotting What is I never saw that movie. What happens then? Well, there's a scene where he goes to To throw up some heroin that he had ingested so he can shoot it Oh, man It's like it's a sort of a dreamy sequence that the bathroom is labeled as the worst bathroom in Scotland And it's nasty and he pukes in there and then reaches in and eventually Ewan McGregor goes all the way into the toilet and swims around. Oh, it's a fantasy sequence

It does sound a little dreamy You know, everyone's fantasy about Going into a poop puke infested toilet and swimming. Yeah Am I missing out not having seen train spotting? Yeah, it's a classic. Okay. Well, I'll go check it out, right? You got anything else on this gross? I'm ready to move on. Yeah, I am too everybody We're moving on if you want to get in touch with us you can go on to our website stuff You should know.com look for our social media links and then send us an email to stuff podcast at howstuffworks.com On the podcast hey dude the 90s called david lasher and christine taylor stars of the cult classic show

Hey, dude bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces We're gonna use hey, dude as our jumping off point But we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it Listen to hey, dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Hey, i'm lance bass host of the new iHeart podcast frosted tips with lance bass. Do you ever think to yourself? What advice would lance bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do you've come to the right place because i'm here to help

And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life tell everybody you everybody About my new podcast and make sure to listen So we'll never ever have to say bye. Bye. Bye. Bye Listen to frosted tips with the lance bass on the iHeart radio app apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts