October Bonus Episode - Corpse Medicine: Tomb to Table

Summary

Morbid: October Bonus Episode — Corpse Medicine: Tomb to Table (October 10, 2025)

Hosts: Ash Kelley & Alaina Urquhart
Theme: True crime, creepy history, and the shockingly real history of “corpse medicine”—how medical cannibalism went from tomb to table in Europe.
Tone: Research-fueled, comedic, conversational (“lighthearted nightmare”)

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Episode Overview

In this lively bonus episode, Ash and Alaina dive into one of history's weirdest, most disturbing medical practices: “corpse medicine,” or “medical cannibalism.” From mummies to “blood jam” and ground-up skull tinctures, the duo explores the grisly ways Europeans consumed human remains in the hope of curing everything from headaches to epilepsy. Balancing their signature humor with the morbid subject matter, they walk listeners through the roots of these beliefs, bizarre recipes, and the eventual shift away from such practices.

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Highlights & Key Discussion Points

1. Banter, Updates, and Setting the Scene

Timestamps: 02:19–15:45

• The duo catch up after an eventful week (SiriusXM presentations, TikTok dances, and cozy nights in).
• Ash and Alaina gush about meeting Andy Cohen and near-missing Alex Cooper.
• “All the kookiness is probably gonna still be in here.” — Elena (03:07)
• Discussion of introversion, recharging post-events, and the importance of kindness online.
• Alaina recounts her child’s adorable whiteboard misspelling (“fleels good to be home”), and they swap self-care tips.

Notable Quote:
“I thank the universe every day for Mikey's jingle jangles.” — Mike (08:22)

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2. Introduction to Corpse Medicine

Timestamps: 15:45–16:58

• Segueing to the episode’s topic: “Let’s talk about something hella nasty, because this is called Morbid, after all.”
• Ash introduces “corpse medicine,” practiced in Europe from the 12th to 17th centuries.
• Overview: doctors, apothecaries, and everyday people used human blood, fat, and ground skulls as medicine.

Notable Quote:
“They were really committed to this.” — Elena, on centuries of corpse medicine (16:34)

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3. Bitumen, Mummies, and Mistranslations

Timestamps: 16:58–24:06

• Origins: Ancient Egyptians and bitumen (a sticky asphalt-like substance) used in supposed healing.
• The Arabic word “mumia” was mistranslated—Europeans believed preserved bodies (mummies) were coated in medicinal bitumen.
• Body-snatching for medical use begins: “People wanted all the bitumen, so bodies started being disturbed…” — Mike (23:34)

Notable Quote:
“People think I'm coated in bitumen a lot.” — Elena (23:31)

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4. Expansion to European Cannibal Medicine

Timestamps: 24:06–27:22

• Meaning of “mumia” broadens: includes flesh, not just bitumen.
• Citing Richard Sugg: “There was almost nothing between the head and feet which could not be used in some way.” — Mike (24:32)
• The concept of “sympathetic magic”—like treats like; ingesting skull for migraines, blood for bleeding, etc.

Notable Quote:
“If your head hurts … you might as well eat some skull.” — Elena (25:11)

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5. Macabre Recipes: Blood Jam and “King’s Drops”

Timestamps: 25:47–32:33

• “Blood jam” was harvested from people described as “blotchy red complexion and rather plump of build.”
• Recipe steps: dry the blood, slice, stir, pound, and sieve—keep fresh each spring (26:30).
• Tincture called “Goddard’s Drops” (later “King’s Drops” by King Charles II)—ingredients include 5 lbs. of ground human skull.
• King Charles reportedly drank wine from a goblet made of skull, mixing in the tincture—he later died of a stroke, ironically while increasing his dose.

Notable Quotes:
“Renew it in the spring of every year.” — Blood jam recipe, read by Mike (26:41)
“A skull goblet filled with skull … that's literally so much skull and wine.” — Elena (30:32)

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6. The Myth of “Vital Spirit” and Sourcing from the Violent Dead

Timestamps: 32:33–35:19

• Preference for skulls of those who died violent deaths—believed to preserve the vital spirit.
• The Irish victims of Cromwellian massacres became a major source due to sheer numbers and “skull moss” (moss that grew on exposed skulls, considered extra potent).
• Moss from skulls was shoved up noses to stop nosebleeds or applied to wounds.

Notable Quotes:
“He’s called the father of toxicology … The bar was in hell.” — Mike (32:49)
“They would literally just take the moss off of skulls and shove it up their nose.” — Mike (35:29)

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7. Apothecaries, Mummy Powder, and Paint

Timestamps: 35:46–39:27

• Apothecaries stocked remedies made from all parts/fractions of the dead: “tinctures, body parts, fluids, anything you could dream of.”
• Mummy powder was a favorite—it was believed to cure nearly anything.
• The pigment “Mummy Brown” (mixed from actual mummy flesh) was used in paintings (e.g., by Martin Drolling, 1815).
• Artist Edward Burne-Jones, upon learning the truth, buried his remaining tube of paint to give the mummy a “decent and proper burial.”

Notable Quotes:
“The most fleshy bits are the best parts.” — Quoted from an 18th-century London publication (37:44)

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8. Fraud, Grave Robbing, and Executioner Entrepreneurs

Timestamps: 40:20–51:26

• Corpses were sourced locally, often from execution sites; buyers desired “fresh” blood and other parts from those dying violently.
• Executioners sold cups of warm blood at executions, recommending it be drunk fresh while the “spirit” remained.
• People dipped handkerchiefs and even bread in execution blood if they couldn’t afford a whole cup.
• Fat from corpses was harvested, rendered for ointments or powders (for wounds, bruises, pains).
• Surgeons during wars collected fat from fallen soldiers; catacomb residues were used for soap and candles.

Notable Quotes:
“People would be out here being like, oh, I’m gonna go buy the richest Egyptian mummy ... you could receive a camel.” — Mike (42:11)
“You could literally buy cups of warm blood ... like going to a concert and paying $12 for water.” — Mike (45:17)
“The image conjured ... taking bread or a handkerchief and soaking up warm blood ... What are we?” — Elena (45:57)

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9. Twilight, Vampires, and Blood as Eternal Youth

Timestamps: 47:31–49:34

• Belief that drinking the blood of the young kept you young and healthy, echoing vampire myths.
• Roman custom: drink gladiator blood for bravery and vigor.

Notable Quotes:
“They said, have you even seen Carlisle?” — Elena (48:22)
“If you even touched the king ... believed that touch alone could heal you. Imagine what his blood could do.” — Mike (47:04)

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10. The Decline of Corpse Medicine and Legacy

Timestamps: 52:11–54:11

• The Enlightenment brings scientific advances; people realize corpse medicine isn’t working and turn away from it.
• Last known mummy for sale was in 1924.
• “It got harder to supply mummies ... people were catching onto the trickery and snake oil ... but mostly people just got smarter and a little more empathetic.” — Mike (53:47)

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11. Reflections, Morals, and Final Thoughts

Timestamps: 54:11–end

• Ash proposes investigating “fecal medicine” someday—Mikey firmly protests.
• Parallel between medical cannibalism and Eucharist: “At church, they're like, here's the blood of Jesus. ... One is symbolic and one is, luckily, literal.” — Elena (55:03)
• “Keep it weird, but not so weird that you go to corpse medicine as a way to treat your ailments. It's not going to work.” — Elena (55:24)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “If your head hurts ... you might as well eat some skull.” — Elena (25:11)
• “A skull goblet filled with skull ... that's literally so much skull and wine.” — Elena (30:32)
• “He’s called the father of toxicology ... The bar was in hell.” — Mike (32:49)
• “You could literally buy cups of warm blood ... like going to a concert and paying $12 for water.” — Mike (45:17)
• “They would literally just take the moss off of skulls and shove it up their nose.” — Mike (35:29)
• “Renew it in the spring of every year.” — Blood jam recipe, read by Mike (26:41)
• “People think I'm coated in bitumen a lot.” — Elena (23:31)
• “They said, have you even seen Carlisle?” — Elena (48:22)
• "Keep it weird, but not so weird that you go to corpse medicine as a way to treat your ailments.” — Elena (55:24)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Segment | Description | Timestamp | |------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------|-------------| | Personal catch-up & banter | Hosts recount NYC trip, introversion, and kindness | 02:19–15:45 | | Introduction to corpse medicine | Ash frames the episode's topic | 15:45–16:58 | | Bitumen & mummy mistranslation | The Egyptian origin, bitumen/mummy confusion | 16:58–24:06 | | Blood jam and “King’s Drops” recipes | Bizarre ingredient lists explained | 25:47–32:33 | | Vital spirit and sourcing from the dead | Irish skulls, “skull moss,” and their uses | 32:33–35:19 | | Apothecaries & mummy powder in art | The pigment “Mummy Brown,” apothecary wares | 35:46–39:27 | | Grave robbing & executioner-sold body parts | Local corpses become main source, bizarre market | 40:20–51:26 | | Shift away from corpse medicine | Enlightenment, decline of practice, last known sale | 52:11–54:11 | | Final reflections and comedic wrap-up | Comparing Eucharist, encouraging weirdness, humor | 54:11–end |

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Episode Takeaways

• “Corpse medicine” was a real, accepted practice for centuries, treating everything from headaches to wounds with ground-up human remains.
• Trade in mummies was global and often fraudulent; executioners cashed in as “suppliers.”
• Many beliefs stemmed from sympathetic magic—the notion that like cures like.
• Western medicine’s history is far more macabre and bizarre than most imagine.
• Humor (and a good dose of incredulousness) is the best way to process how weird history gets.

Ending note:
“Keep it weird, but not so weird that you go to corpse medicine as a way to treat your ailments. It's not going to work.” — Elena (55:24)

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This episode delivers historical shock, genuine laughs, and a wild ride through humanity’s strangest medicinal ideas. Don’t try any of it at home—stick to enjoying the outrageously weird side of history with Ash and Alaina.

Transcript

[Ash]

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[Mike]

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[Ash]

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[Elena]

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[Ash]

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[Mike]

Ready? Hold on. What if I started every episode like that?

[Elena]

I mean, do what you got to do.

[Mike]

You think you'd get over it?

[Elena]

I think I would just tolerate it.

[Mike]

Okay.

[Elena]

You know.

[Mike]

All right.

[Elena]

Are we going? Whatever you feel.

[Mike]

Hey weirdos. I'm Ash. And I'm Elena and this is Morbid.

[Elena]

I feel like you should just leave that in as the beginning of the bonus episode.

[Mike]

Yeah, I was just slapping my own face to get ready to Record this.

[Elena]

Slapping and screaming, slapping and screaming.

[Mike]

That's my motto.

[Elena]

Wow.

[Mike]

Mikey said, girl. Don't make that your motto.

[Elena]

He said girl. Back it up.

[Mike]

It's a bonus episode. So we're leaving all of this in.

[Elena]

Yeah, all the kookiness is probably gonna still be in here.

[Mike]

Yeah. We're coming off of the most wonderful week.

[Elena]

Yeah, it's been a great week.

[Mike]

No one could even attempt to hurt my feelings right now.

[Elena]

And they have.

[Mike]

They sure have. And it hasn't worked. You can go fuck yourself. Because I met Andy Cohen. Bitch. And Kelly Ripa, and they were both so sweet. And we were in the.

[Elena]

This.

[Mike]

This will haunt me until the day I die. Alex Cooper, if you're listening. Yeah, that would be crazy. We were in the same room as Alex Cooper and I didn't fucking realize it. Cause she was just about to go out on stage. We just did this big thing with Sirius. It was like the advertising up front. So there's all these presentations that we got to be a part. We got to meet some other people who work at Sirius. I'm essentially co workers with Andy Cohen now.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Mikey brought that to my attention this morning. But yeah, we were in this, like, little green room with so many cool people. And Alex Cooper was one of them.

[Ash]

And I didn't see that she was.

[Mike]

In there because I think I was getting fitted for, like, a microphone. Yeah. I will regret that moment until the day I go into the grave.

[Elena]

And here's the thing. I saw. I heard Alex Cooper first because, like, you know her voice.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Elena]

And then I looked over and she was getting, like, touched upon.

[Mike]

Yeah. So you don't want to, like, interrupt. And I got like.

[Elena]

I was like. I don't know what to say to her. Yeah.

[Mike]

Because she's like. I was like, damn boss ass bitch. I have been very sweet.

[Elena]

I could see she was very sweet to, like, everyone around her. So. Yeah.

[Mike]

And her presentation was so good.

[Elena]

Yeah. A behavior.

[Mike]

I have been Daddy Gang since day one.

[Elena]

Yeah, you have.

[Mike]

And I will be Daddy Gang until.

[Elena]

I was a later. Later convert.

[Mike]

You were a leader.

[Elena]

Leader Daddy Gang. But I'm. I'm. I'm there.

[Mike]

Well, hopefully there's another event where we can meet Alex Cooper and apologize for not, you know, bowing down to her greatness the first time we met her.

[Elena]

Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Serious. It was a fucking blast with them.

[Mike]

Serious was the goddamn move.

[Elena]

Yeah. We love everyone we're working with right now. It's been really great. And you guys have had such cool responses to it. You guys can feel it as well. And you've been telling us that. And thank you for telling us that, because it's nice to know that what we feel on the inside is coming out in the podcast. We're very happy. We're very happy at work.

[Mike]

It feels so. It flee feels good.

[Elena]

That's. So this is a little side tangen for the. It fleets.

[Mike]

It's a bonus episode. So it's loose and it's goose. We are going to get to something crazy, but we're going to banter for a bit.

[Elena]

There's, you know, this is where we can go on our tangents.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Elena]

When we got home from a vacation, we have, like, a whiteboard in our kitchen that we, like, put all the school things on and all that. And one of my kids wrote on the whiteboard, it fleels good to be.

[Mike]

Home F L E E L S, which fleels good.

[Elena]

First of all, writing it feels good to be home is the most adorable thing ever, because I'm pret sure she was, like, seven.

[Mike]

Yeah, she was.

[Elena]

She was young, but she wrote fleels. And we have literally put a border around it on the whiteboard, and it's been there for years now.

[Mike]

It is not to be erased, and.

[Elena]

I will not allow anyone to erase it. I'm probably going to take, like, a saw and saw that portion of the.

[Mike]

Yeah. Like an exacto knife.

[Elena]

I need to keep it forever.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Elena]

And it's. And it's like, dry erase marker. So I'm very scared. If you guys have any tips on how to keep that from. Do you think smearing.

[Mike]

Could you laminate it?

[Elena]

That's the. I don't know how to do it without, like, smushing it or making it run or anything. So if you guys have tips, maybe.

[Mike]

You could go over it with, like, permanent marker or something. We're both looking at Mikey. Like, Mikey, what would we do?

[Elena]

I know. I looked at Mikey, like, I bet, you know, like, he's a craft.

[Mike]

Mikey's a crafting king.

[Elena]

But we'll. We're. We'll figure it out. If you guys have any tips, I would love them, because I do want to keep my. It feels good to be home forever.

[Mike]

Oh, it feels. It feels so good to be home.

[Elena]

You give it to her when she's, like, 18 for, like, a graduation present.

[Mike]

The first time she comes home from college and just be like, here you go. Does it still feel so good?

[Elena]

Here's this chunk of our whiteboard from one year.

[Mike]

She's sentimental.

[Elena]

She's Very sentimental.

[Mike]

She would love it. She'd cry.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Elena]

That's my girl right there.

[Mike]

Yeah. But this weekend was incredible. What else is going on?

[Elena]

Still dealing with the Golden Globes of it all.

[Mike]

Still just dealing with that.

[Elena]

Still just reeling from that.

[Mike]

Crazy. Yeah. We are gonna submit our application pretty soon.

[Elena]

Yeah. See if we can make it into the nomination pool.

[Mike]

But even for me, even if we just get. First of all, this is plenty.

[Elena]

Just being on the short list.

[Mike]

Is being on the short list a win for me and being able to say multiple times this past week, like, at different presentations, like, yeah, you know, like, we're eligible to be nominated. It's like Astrocast. But even if we got nominated, that would also be enough for me.

[Elena]

Oh, that's a win.

[Mike]

Everything is enough for so far.

[Elena]

Win, win, win for me. Like, doesn't matter what happens after this. I'm pretty happy.

[Mike]

This is just my anxiety talking. But are you ever terrified when things are so good that you're like, oh, Is everything okay?

[Elena]

140. Yes.

[Mike]

In the back of my mind, I'm like, things are like, really, really?

[Elena]

No, but you just gotta keep manifesting it, and you gotta keep being thankful for it. Oh, I. It's all about being grateful.

[Mike]

I think that's really, like, a big thing. I thank the universe every single day for every.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Mike]

What are you just jingle it over there for?

[Elena]

Never take it for granted.

[Mike]

I thank the universe every day for Mikey's jingle jangles. I do, too.

[Elena]

Thank you for Mikey's jingle jangles Universe.

[Mike]

Thank you for Mikey Universe, period. Truly.

[Elena]

Thank you for Mikey universe. Oh, yeah. But, yeah, I think it's. I think it really is. Just never take it for granted. No. You know, you never know what can happen tomorrow.

[Mike]

Also, we learned a TikTok dance this weekend, and a lot of you were genuinely so surprised at Elena's ability to tell the truth with her hips, which.

[Elena]

I did not know if I should take that as a compliment or an insult, but I'm just kidding. But, yeah, I, I, I guess I can learn a dance.

[Mike]

It was so funny after the first day in New York. It was like this whirlwind of a day, which was, like, so cool. Like, we met all the cool people and everything. And then we were going to go. I was like, we should go out to dinner. Like, I'm on such a high right now. I literally felt like I was on drugs. I was like, I feel so wonderful. We got home, I'm FaceTiming Drew, telling him, like, how cool the day Was. And I'm like, yeah, we're going to go out to dinner and it's gonna be awesome.

[Elena]

And.

[Ash]

And I sat down.

[Mike]

I'm like, I don't really want to go out to dinner. I kind of just want to hang here. And Elena comes in my room. She's like, hey, so, like, what do you think if we just, like, ordered food and, like, hung out, Maybe watched Laguna Beat? I was like, I'm in.

[Elena]

Like, I'm in.

[Mike]

And then we proceeded to get Chinese food and pizza, which both were great. Oh, my God. Wherever we got Chinese food from in New York, we need to order.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And the pizza was really good.

[Elena]

It was so good.

[Mike]

Yeah. Was just lit.

[Elena]

He's gotten our sweatshirt.

[Mike]

I got my Halloween PJs.

[Elena]

Yeah, we just, like. There were parties happening. There were all kinds of that. We didn't go out to dinner. We just said, no, no, we're gonna stay in this hotel room. We're gonna watch some old episodes of Laguna Beach. Oh, my God. We're gonna learn a tick tock dance.

[Mike]

We specifically watched you will film it. And he did. And I need you guys to know that that was our first take. Yeah, I'm pretty proud of that after learning it. It was our first take, so that's why I look so focused.

[Elena]

Okay. So we were messing around with the lighting and the other takes, but because I'm getting old, every further take that was happening after that, I was getting more and more tired. So it wasn't. It wasn't great.

[Mike]

I disagree. I think they were good.

[Elena]

I appreciate that.

[Mike]

But the first one was definitely the best.

[Elena]

When we changed the lighting in the later ones, we. There were like all kinds of little orb things floating around, which is like, ooh, ghosties. Yeah.

[Mike]

I slept really good in the hotel the first night, but then the second night, I think it was haunted for sure.

[Elena]

Yeah. You kept hearing creaking.

[Mike]

I was hearing lots of creaking.

[Elena]

Freaking.

[Mike]

And it was freaking me out because there was like a ton of windows in the room and there were so many drapes. And all I could think. I woke up at like, 3am and all I could think of was the story that I told about the alien abduction where she was like, I forgot to look behind the drapes.

[Elena]

Oh, my God.

[Mike]

And I was like, I didn't look behind any of these drapes.

[Elena]

What if there's an alien?

[Mike]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Elena]

That's crazy.

[Mike]

I know. There wasn't, luckily, but, yeah, that's how.

[Elena]

We, like, that's how we roll in New York. Yeah. We can handle, like, a little bit of excitement. And then we are in our PJs.

[Mike]

I feel like ordering pizza some. I.

[Ash]

Sometimes I say that I'm an introverted.

[Mike]

Extrovert, but I think I'm becoming more of an introvert who just has to be extroverted sometimes.

[Elena]

That's what I am.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Elena]

I'm one. I'm for sure an introvert. And then. But I know that my job requires me to be an extrovert sometimes, so I can pull it out.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Elena]

And it's the people that are around me at my job that help. Like, our. Our live shows require me to be an extrovert. But then the energy in the room kind of feeds that. Yeah. Makes it easier.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Elena]

And then, like, meeting you guys afterwards.

[Mike]

Is always so fun.

[Elena]

It's so easy to be an extrovert there because you guys are just fun to meet and have fun.

[Mike]

But then I do, like. I fully agree with that. But then I do need to recharge. Oh, and my recharging, it was so funny. We were so. We had just got home from New York, and then we had to.

[Elena]

We.

[Mike]

Or got to. I should say, got to go to the two Girls one go, which was so much fun. Sabrina and G know how to put on a show.

[Elena]

They're so good.

[Mike]

I love them. And we were so. We got to be guests for that. And I was getting ready for it, and it was so funny. Drew goes. You literally did. I was sitting down doing my makeup. He's like, you didn't say a word to me the entire time you were getting ready for that. And then you're just like, okay, I love you.

[Elena]

Bye. Just recharging.

[Mike]

I was like, yeah.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Mike]

I was. I was on my charging block.

[Elena]

It's so true. Yeah.

[Mike]

It's just how it is sometimes.

[Elena]

Yeah. You guys feel us?

[Mike]

It's been a whirlwind of a week.

[Elena]

And you guys have been, like, really supportive and awesome. Like, everybody's just been, like, hyping us up. You guys have been really cool.

[Mike]

I love you guys.

[Elena]

And, you know, there's always a couple, but, you know, we. We eradicate them from the bunch. We do.

[Mike]

Sometimes they delete their comments asking you if you're pregnant when you're not.

[Elena]

Yeah. Don't ask people if they're pregnant.

[Mike]

Yeah. It's a really. For a million reasons, it's a really terrible idea.

[Elena]

Yeah. If somebody is. Somebody who went through infertility for three years, I would have fucking lost my mind if somebody asked me that. So don't do that. But none of you would.

[Mike]

None of that's the thing. None of you listening.

[Elena]

None of you listening. None of our, like, good community here would. There's always those ones that just like come out of nowhere and are like, oh, I'm gonna yuck people's yum on the Internet because I'm a miserable cunt.

[Mike]

It's like, sorry, I was on your discover page.

[Elena]

All right, so let's make sure. You know what? Because all you listening, I know it's. You're all the. You're all the good ones.

[Mike]

Hey, beauty queens.

[Elena]

Yeah. Hey, all you beauties. When you see people being shitheads on the Internet, just chase them, Chase them off the Internet.

[Mike]

Chase them down.

[Elena]

Get them, get them gone. We gotta start fucking chasing these assholes off the Internet.

[Mike]

Go on.

[Elena]

People who just go around and leave nasty comments on people's happiness need to be, like, chased off the Internet.

[Mike]

Nasty begets nasty, my dears.

[Elena]

I love nothing more now than to see a video of somebody that I'm like, well, that's a fun video. Or, like, that's really cool. I now make it a point and we all should to leave a kind comment or an uplifting comment on as many videos as I possibly can. Yeah. And they're all real because they're genuine.

[Mike]

Because there's some much yuckiness that you need to counteract people up.

[Elena]

It feels so good.

[Mike]

It does.

[Elena]

Like, it really does.

[Mike]

It's like, feels so good.

[Elena]

Feels so good.

[Mike]

Full circle.

[Elena]

I'm telling you, like, pumping people up, up. So much better than trying to tear someone down.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Elena]

It's gonna make you feel so much better.

[Mike]

You'll feel better about your own self.

[Elena]

And we can just like turn that because everything sucks right now.

[Mike]

Oh, God.

[Elena]

And like, the Internet is a literal garbage fire.

[Mike]

I was gonna say.

[Elena]

Don't. We can try to turn it around a little by just like spreading more positivity and making those troll ass bitches feel unwelcome.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Elena]

Like, we really got. And I'm seeing people start to do that more and it's making me happy because I think we are starting to make the trolls feel very unwelcome on the Internet.

[Mike]

And we need to continue doing that. Absolutely.

[Elena]

If you see a video or something that even slightly tickles your pickle, you should.

[Mike]

You should comment. Hey, this tickled my pickle. Even just the littlest bit.

[Elena]

Let that person know Mikey is making.

[Mike]

An X in the air. He's like, do not do that.

[Elena]

Let that person know that their makeup Is awesome. Let that person know that the hair is killing it.

[Mike]

Maybe you could say, hey, this struck my fancy.

[Elena]

This struck my. This made me feel. Feel, you know, this made me feel the fleece. Let that person know that dance was great. This was a funny video. This made me laugh. Yeah, like, just do it.

[Ash]

Just.

[Mike]

Let's throw them in the air. It's worth it. Become a stunter. Hell, yeah. Stunt on these hoes. All right, well, with all that being said, let's talk about something hella nasty, because this is called morbid, after all.

[Elena]

I'm very excited for this one. And Ash really, really did the damn thing.

[Mike]

I really went forth and conquered. Thank you for the recognition there, brother.

[Ash]

Well, I was looking for something Halloweeny.

[Mike]

Or like Halloween adjacent to talk about because it's, you know, an October bonus episode.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Mike]

So that's when I stumbled across a Smithsonian article about something called corpse medicine.

[Elena]

And I said, yeah, I want to hear about that.

[Mike]

And I said, yeah, that sounds pretty fucking morbid. So corpse medicine, or medical cannibalism, it's also called, was a legit medical practice back in Europe from the 12th century all the way into the 17th century.

[Elena]

Wow. They were really committed to this.

[Mike]

Long time. Yeah. Back then, people from all different kinds of walks of life, even medical doctors believed that consuming things like blood, human fat, crushed up skull bits would have different medical benefits, whether it was relieving headaches, treating bruises, improving circulation, or even curing epilepsy.

[Elena]

Damn.

[Ash]

Damn is right.

[Elena]

Mummy dust.

[Mike]

Well, I'm gonna actually talk about mummy dust. Thank you for the foreshadowing, Tobias Forge. So it all kind of started back in ancient Egypt with mummies.

[Elena]

There we go.

[Mike]

But before we get there, we have to talk about something called bitumen.

[Elena]

Okay.

[Mike]

It's really called bitumen. And also a pretty big mix up in language translation. So let's talk about bitumen first. Bitumen is actually one of the main ingredients in asphalt.

[Elena]

Oh, okay.

[Mike]

It's like the black, sticky substance that kind of holds everything together. It acts like a glue.

[Elena]

Okay.

[Mike]

It's actually a naturally occurring substance, and thousands of years ago, they would use it to treat things like asthma, stomach inflammation, broken bones, acne. No, like literally, you know, your day to day snake and scorpion bites.

[Elena]

Oh, yeah.

[Mike]

Ear infections.

[Elena]

I'm always looking for something for my day to day scorpion and snake bites.

[Mike]

It's just a common occurrence out here, especially mass.

[Elena]

Jesus. Scorpions everywhere.

[Mike]

Scorpions and snakes just biting us all. And we're all covered in asphalt.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Mike]

So now we obviously know all the harmful effects of ingesting bitumen like skin cancer, skin irritation, respiratory problems, death, Poison. Poison. But back then, people really thought it was the tits. Well, respected Roman scientist and close friend to the emperor Gaius Plinius Secundus, AKA Pliny the Elder. He used to tell me.

[Elena]

The Elder?

[Mike]

Pliny the Elder. He used to tell people to mix it in with wine and it would treat their coughs and their dysentery. Damn. He said just mix a little tar in with your wine.

[Elena]

Yeah, it's fine.

[Mike]

Take a big sip.

[Elena]

I love that.

[Mike]

You'll feel better in no time.

[Elena]

I mean, let's go. Is it Gaius? Gaius.

[Mike]

It's Gaius.

[Elena]

Gaius.

[Mike]

Gaius.

[Elena]

Let's go. Gaius.

[Mike]

Plinius Secundus.

[Elena]

Oh, yes, ply. And what was it? The Elder.

[Mike]

Pliny the Elder.

[Elena]

I'm so sorry. Pliny the Elder.

[Mike]

Put some respect on Pliny the.

[Elena]

I was gonna say. I don't want to fuck it up.

[Mike]

He's a goddamn elder.

[Elena]

Put some goddamn respect on his name.

[Mike]

Hello. So yeah, that. That's bitumen.

[Elena]

Now that's bitchman.

[Mike]

It's bitchin.

[Elena]

It's bitum.

[Ash]

From Paramount Pictures comes Regretting you, the emotional new film based on Colleen Hoover's best selling novel.

[Mike]

Directed by Josh Boone, the filmmaker who.

[Ash]

Brought you the Fault in Our stars. This story of love, loss and second chances stars Allison Williams, McKenna Grace, Dave Franco, Mason Thames and Scott Eastwood. At its heart is the unforgettable bond between a mother and a daughter as they face tragedy, secrets and the journey of rediscovering each other. Regretting youg opens in theaters everywhere October 24th. Don't miss it. This show is sponsored by Better Help. World Mental Health Day is in October and BetterHelp is shining the spotlight on therapists. People who truly make the world a better place. Because the right therapist can change everything. Better Help therapists work according to a.

[Mike]

Strict code of conduct and are fully.

[Ash]

Licensed in the US BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so that you can focus on your therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences and their 12 plus years of experience. An industry leading match fulfillment rate means they typically get it right the first time.

[Mike]

But guess what? If you're not happy with your match.

[Ash]

You can switch to a different therapist at any time from their tailored recommendations. Me personally, I love therapy. I actually know what it means when you have a therapist who makes a difference. Because I just started seeing my old therapist again and I love her.

[Mike]

She helps me a lot.

[Ash]

This World Mental Health Day we are celebrating the therapists who have helped millions.

[Mike]

Of people take a step forward.

[Ash]

If you're ready to find the right therapist for you, BetterHelp can help you start that journey. Our listeners get 10 off their first month at betterhelp.commorbid that's BetterHelp H-E-L-P.commorbid Paycheck to Paycheck Anxiety anyone? Oh, worrying doesn't help, but you know it does. Earning Earning does Earn. It is an app that lets you access your pay as you earn it, up to 150 a day with a max of $750 between paydays. Just download the Earn an app and add your info and then start accessing your pay as you work. Any money that you access is automatically repaid from your next paycheck. I so so wish that I knew about this. When I was like trying to build my credit score and in my early 20s I would have been been so nice to know that I could easily access my paycheck early because you run into things all the time, like an unexpected vet bill, you need to do work on your car, different things like that. And sometimes you don't always have that money right away. But with Earn in you would download Earn in today, spelled E A R.

[Mike]

N I N in the Google Play.

[Ash]

Or Apple App Store when you download the Earn an app. Type in Morbid under Podcast when you sign up. Morbid under Podcast. Earn in is a financial technology company, not a bank. Access limits are based on your earnings and risk factors. Standard cashouts take one to two business days with no mandatory fees. Expedited transfers available for a fee. Tips are voluntary and don't affect the service. Available in select states. Terms and restrictions apply. Visit Earnin.com for full details. Download Earn in right now and take control of your pay.

[Mike]

So now to the mummies and the mistranslation of it all. When you picture a mummy, obviously you think of like a Halloween costumey toilet paper wrapped dead person always. But the word mummy originally wasn't always referring to the entire being or like the body itself. Around the 12th century, the Arabic word mumia was mistranslated.

[Elena]

Oh yeah.

[Mike]

So originally it was just referring to the substance bitumen. Oh that's what mumia was. But when Europeans started viewing ancient Egyptian bodies that had been preserved by this embalming process that used all kinds of different resin and things like that, they thought that was naturally occurring bitumen and that it's never not. But they thought that was naturally occurring and that it had all These cure all properties. And they thought that the word was referring to the entire body. And that's how we got the English word mummy.

[Elena]

Like this person is a mummy, not the subject substance.

[Mike]

Exactly. Isn't that interesting?

[Elena]

That's very interesting. I didn't know that.

[Mike]

So now, because the. But they thought that the bodies were coated in bitumen. Everyone thought they had all kinds of medical uses.

[Elena]

People think I'm coated in bitumen a lot.

[Mike]

You are bitumen coded. But because people wanted all the bitumen, they, you know, these bodies started being disturbed so that people could access the substance.

[Elena]

Oh, that's fucked up.

[Mike]

Yeah, Real messed up.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And it got even more fucked up as time went on. According to the Science History Institute writer Marielle Carr, she said after this point, the meaning of mumia expanded to include not just asphalt, but other hardened resinous material from embalmed bodies, but the flesh of that embalmed body as well.

[Elena]

Oh, yeah, we're getting kooky.

[Mike]

Not only were they like, hey, I'd like that bitumen, they were like, I'd like that arm, I'd like that head.

[Elena]

Yeah, yeah, I don't want that. Yeah, well, no, thank you.

[Mike]

They did in Europe. Eventually the practice of eating human flesh and other parts of the body found its way over there.

[Elena]

Awesome.

[Mike]

Richard Sugg, who wrote Mummies, Cannibals and the History of Corpse Medicine from the Renaissance to the Victorians.

[Elena]

Let's go, girls.

[Mike]

He wrote, for certain practitioners and patients, there was almost nothing between the head and feet which could not be used in some way.

[Elena]

Wow.

[Mike]

And he was right.

[Elena]

And he was correct.

[Mike]

He was correct. So the idea was kind of rooted in, like sympathetic magic. Back then. They believed that there was a connection between two things or two actions they said, like, treated like. So if somebody had a migraine. Cool. Give them this ground up skull tincture. Yeah.

[Elena]

I mean, honestly, with such like, you know, remedial understanding of pretty much anything at that point.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Elena]

I get why the connection was made. I suppose if you think this is.

[Mike]

All gonna work, I mean, I get the thinking, you know, like.

[Elena]

Yeah, like people are gonna believe doctors. And all these people being like, hey, if your head hurts. Yeah. You might as well eat some skull.

[Mike]

Yeah, do it. Ingest some skull. Yeah. I'm not telling you to. But the doctors back.

[Elena]

I mean, we're telling people too.

[Mike]

Definitely don't. But they also thought, if somebody's bleeding, let's stop the bleeding with some blood jam.

[Elena]

Oh, yeah.

[Mike]

Which is funny because it's kind of like a double entendre. It like jams up the blood.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Stops bleeding. But it's also like a jelly.

[Elena]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that just makes me think of like coagulated blood because it looks like jelly.

[Mike]

I mean, that's essentially what this was.

[Elena]

It just. I can picture it.

[Mike]

Yeah. Well, Richard Sugg actually gives one of the original recipes for blood jam in his book. First, one needs to get blood from, quote, persons of warm, moist temperament, such as those of blotchy red complexion and rather plump of build. So then once you get your blood from your plump of build, blotchy red person, then you're going to let that dry into a sticky mass. Once it's dry, the recipe says to place it upon a flat, smooth table of soft wood, not hard, and cut it into thin little slices, allowing its watery part to drip away. When it's no longer dripping, place it on a stove on the same table and stir it into a batter with a knife. When it's absolutely dry, place it immediately in a very warm bronze mortar and pound it, forcing it through a sieve of the finest silk. When it has all been sieved, seal it in a glass jar. Renew it in the spring of every year.

[Elena]

Okay, will do like. Renew it in the spring of every year. It sounds very Martha Stewart at the end.

[Mike]

I was just gonna say that it's literally Martha being like. And you know what? Keep on top of it, girl.

[Elena]

Keep on top of it.

[Mike]

Renew it in the spring of every year.

[Elena]

It's like in a garden.

[Mike]

Because being like, store bought is fine.

[Elena]

If you can't make it yourself, store bought is fine.

[Mike]

Which I don't really. Well, you know what I was gonna say, I don't think you could get this in the store, but you could, because we're gonna talk about the apothecaries in a minute. Oh, here we go. That carried all this stuff. But first, let's get back to the ground up skull tincture. So originally I'd like to get back to that.

[Elena]

Thank you.

[Mike]

I'm so glad I didn't love that.

[Elena]

We were. We were going so far away from it.

[Mike]

Yeah. Where is it you always want to go back to the tincture.

[Elena]

As someone with migraines, I would like to hear about this ground up skull tincture.

[Mike]

All right. You might end up being disappointed, but you know what? I'll tell you everything you need to know.

[Elena]

I'm always looking for a remedy.

[Mike]

Here's the thing. Originally, the mixture was referred to as Goddard's drops because they were invented by a doctor named Jonathan Goddard. In the 17th century. He served as an army surgeon during the English Civil War. And he was one of Oliver Cromwell's personal doctors. Oliver Cromwell can get booked. Truly. But I'm an Irish woman. So somehow, through his own studies of corpse medicine, he came to believe that his tincture could cure all kinds of things. Fainting strokes, epilepsy, bladder stones. Really just anything causing you any kind.

[Elena]

Of distress whenever something is claiming that it can fix everything different, complex and completely distinct problems.

[Mike]

Yeah, question. Yeah, question.

[Elena]

I'm not saying it.

[Mike]

Just question it. Just ask.

[Elena]

If you just saves, how's it doing all that? How's it doing all that?

[Mike]

You'll find out. Okay, so first, let's get to the recipe. The recipe was a mix of five pounds of human skull.

[Elena]

Whoa.

[Mike]

Five pounds of human skull, two pounds of dried vapors, two pounds of distilled deer horns, and two pounds of ivory. Oh, I know, it's fucked up. After a process of distilling and filtering and doing that all and all over again, they were then poured into a tincture bottle. And the instructions were to take seven to eight drops for things like headaches, migraines, fainting, maybe even if you just needed a simple stimulant. You're a little tired.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Mike]

A little King's Drop on your tongue.

[Elena]

Yeah, why not?

[Mike]

Or Goddard's Drop. Excuse me, we're not to King's Drops yet, but in cases where, you know, you had had a stroke or suffered from epilepsy, the dose could increase to 50 drops.

[Elena]

Holy shit.

[Mike]

Now, here's where we get to King's Drop. King Charles II was such a fan of this tincture. He was, like, really into chemistry and science and everything. He literally had, like, a lab built in the castle. But so he was so interested, and he was such a fan of the tincture. He was said to have bought the recipe from Dr. Goddard for £6,000.

[Elena]

Damn.

[Mike]

And then he rebranded the name to the King's Drops.

[Elena]

It's the relaunch for me.

[Mike]

I bet they had a relaunch brand like, it is the relaunch for me.

[Elena]

It's the rebranding. I. I kind of love that.

[Mike]

He said, I bought these, I bought their name, their likeness and their mind. Now he said, relaunch King's Drops. He would add them to his wine, he would add them to chocolates. Some people said that he had a goblet that was made of skull that he would drink his wine in with skull's drops in it.

[Elena]

Here's the thing that's extraordinarily metal, but it's not good.

[Mike]

Not good. But I have to agree with you. But, like.

[Elena]

Like, you have to do a. A guitar riff there.

[Mike]

You absolutely do.

[Elena]

That's insane.

[Mike]

Just walking around with a goblet.

[Elena]

With a skull goblet, drinking your skull tincture and wine.

[Mike]

That's the thing. Like a skull goblet filled with skull.

[Elena]

That's literally so much skull and wine.

[Mike]

Yeah, that's.

[Elena]

I'm me. I'm going to. I'm going to look for a different remedy for my migraines.

[Mike]

You know, Excedrin seems to work great for you.

[Elena]

I will not be. Be trying this.

[Mike]

I'm glad to hear that.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Mike]

That makes me feel like a lot more secure as your business partner.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Mike]

But he also allegedly gave them to the Royal Court, too, as a kind of truth serum.

[Elena]

Oh.

[Mike]

But it's also like.

[Elena]

It's that, too.

[Mike]

Well, they think so, but I'm like, you were just giving them wine.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And people tend to get drunk and people. And they start telling you stuff, you know?

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Mike]

No, Ironically, King Charles II died of a stroke.

[Elena]

Oops.

[Mike]

In 1685, even after upping his dosage on his deathbed to 40 drops per day.

[Elena]

It's so weird that that didn't work.

[Mike]

Yeah. It's crazy. He wasn't the only person who died from that. Really. Yeah. King's drops didn't really save a lot of people.

[Elena]

I had such faith.

[Mike]

I did, too. Now, here's the thing. One of the most important things when it came to the sourcing of skulls for Kings Drops was that the skull came from a person who had died a violent death. Oh, yeah.

[Elena]

That gets even gnarlier.

[Mike]

Now, this was rooted in the idea of the vital spirit, which is pretty similar to sympathetic magic. Paracelsus, who was a Swiss doctor who lived during the 14th and 15th centuries. He believed that if a person died suddenly, they would have more of this life force or vital spirit inside of them because it hadn't been damaged by any kind of illness and the person wasn't expecting to die necessarily. So that meant that their spirits still possess some kind of desire to continue on. And therefore, if you ingested that, you would have that will to. To continue on and to, you know, not be sick or to not suffer from whatever was ailing you.

[Elena]

Damn. I love the mental gymnastics that they do to make these things make sense. Because you. You're like, yeah, all right. Yeah, like, sure, if I do a few backflips, that makes perfect sense.

[Mike]

Yeah, definitely. I mean, if I run over there, Come back really quick, do a cartwheel, chug some Gatorade and then do 15 more flips.

[Elena]

I think I get it. Yeah. If I'm Simone Biles, that makes sense. Yeah.

[Mike]

If I get the spins, it makes sense.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Mike]

This is gonna really send you. He was called the father of toxicology back then.

[Elena]

Wow. Yeah, we really. The bar was in hell.

[Mike]

It was. It sure was. What do you mean, it sure was? So in the case of sourcing father. That's not my dad.

[Elena]

That's not my dad.

[Mike]

So in the case of sourcing skulls for the king's drops, a lot of them came from Ireland, which was fucking pointed.

[Elena]

Wow.

[Mike]

Like I mentioned earlier, there was many reasons for it, but one, I think the biggest one is what I'm gonna say.

[Elena]

He's definitely not my dad. No.

[Mike]

So like I mentioned earlier, Dr. Goddard was the army surgeon during the English Civil War. The first one. And he was also Oliver Cromwell's personal doctor. The English Civil War coincided with the Cromwellian massacres in Ireland, where thousands of Irish troops and civilians were killed incredibly violently. Like, Oliver Cromwell was a fucked up person.

[Elena]

He was a turd bucket.

[Mike]

Yeah. He loved to like people that were captured. He would torture them. People that were literally just passing through an area who weren't involved in the war at all, he would capture them and torture them. And they died brutal, brutal deaths.

[Elena]

Yeah. For a guy named Oliver, he had a lot of nerve.

[Mike]

He really did.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Mike]

It's like you're supposed to be kind of gentle.

[Elena]

Yeah. I've never met an Oliver that was like a piece of shit.

[Mike]

Yeah. That was like this.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Well, unfortunately, the Cromwellian massacres obviously led to a surplus of skulls that physicians back then would have believed contained the perfect amount of vital force. Because of the way that they were killed, they weren't expecting to be killed. They died violently. Yada, yada, yada. Now, another desirable quality of the skulls found in Ireland was something called skull moss or usmia. A lot of times in Ireland, enemies killed on their land weren't buried. They were just left out as warning. Like, not to fuck with Ireland.

[Elena]

Like what I do with spiders sometimes.

[Mike]

Yeah. You leave the dead body somewhere. I love that.

[Elena]

The next one knows.

[Mike]

That's pretty much the same thing. That's pretty much genius also.

[Elena]

Yeah. You gotta let them know, like, this is what I'm about. I'll leave you alone outside. My house is my house.

[Mike]

I mean, you are Irish, after all. Yeah. So because they were left to the elements, moss would start to grow over the Tops of the skulls. And physicians back then thought that these skulls would be even more potent with vital force because the moss would suck it all up. So it was ideal for king's drops, but also absorbent enough to be used to stop nosebleeds as well.

[Elena]

Oh, good.

[Mike]

So they would either. They would either grind up the skull and, you know, add the moss to the tincture, like grind that up too.

[Ash]

Or they would literally just take the.

[Mike]

Moss off of the skulls and shove it up their nose.

[Elena]

Absolutely.

[Mike]

To stop nosebleeds, of course. Or even like it was put on wounds and that kind of thing at times, too.

[Elena]

Wow.

[Mike]

Yeah, we.

[Elena]

Wow. We came. We've come a long way.

[Mike]

We have.

[Elena]

That's pretty wild.

[Mike]

We sort of have.

[Elena]

Skull moss is. I thought, what is the vital. What is it called?

[Mike]

Vital force.

[Elena]

Vital force and life. And life. Sorry.

[Mike]

Vital spirit.

[Elena]

There it is.

[Mike]

I combined life force and vital spirit.

[Elena]

Vital Spirit sounds like a really cool band name.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

And Skull Moss feels like a really good name of a book.

[Mike]

Yeah. I would read a book called Skull Moss.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Mike]

I feel like skullmoss could even be abandoned. They opened up for vital spirit.

[Elena]

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I like it.

[Mike]

I like it. Well, physicians weren't the only people learning about and stocking their shelves with corpse medicine. There was also apothecaries who had entire stores filled to the brim with tinctures, body parts, fluids, anything you could dream of. Cool. To treat your ailments.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Mike]

One of the main things that they carried was something that you foreshadowed earlier. Mummy powder.

[Elena]

Mummy powder, sort of mummy dust.

[Mike]

So mummy powder was really looked at back then to be another cure all. It was like the end all, be all in corpse medicine. They thought of it as a panacea, which is a remedy for like anything that ails you whatsoever.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Mike]

They thought it was a cough suppressant, an anti inflammatory, a blood thinner, a painkiller. You name it. Mummy powder could fix it.

[Elena]

Let's go.

[Mike]

And just a quick little side detour. It didn't only serve medical purposes, it also had its role in the arts. Oh, there is a famous painting called Interior of a Kitchen and it's by Martin Drolling. It was done in 1815 and a lot of art historians agree that he used a ton of this color called mummy brown.

[Elena]

Mummy brown.

[Mike]

And that was a mixture of white pitch, myrrh and mummy flesh.

[Elena]

Damn.

[Mike]

They were straight up painting with mummy.

[Elena]

Flesh with pieces of people.

[Mike]

Yep. In 1797, a London publication actually wrote that quote, the most fleshy bits are the best part.

[Elena]

Parts. The most fleshy bits are the best parts.

[Mike]

The best parts for to make paint.

[Elena]

Was that Hannibal Lecter who said that?

[Mike]

No, it wasn't even like, what? And it was used for hundreds and hundreds of years and it became a great ghost song. Yeah. Mummy does that is really fun to watch live. There you go.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Mike]

He do be thrusting.

[Elena]

He do be.

[Mike]

Well, in 1881, a famous artist, Edward Burr Jones, found out the truth about Mummy Brown. He thought he had heard, like, in, you know, his fancy art community. Of course people say like, oh, yeah, it's literally made of mummies. And he was like, oh, pish posh.

[Elena]

Imagine that casual conversation. Somebody at, like, coffee is just like, did you hear? Yeah. Did you hear that Marcus put fucking bits of flesh in his painting? And everybody's like, ah.

[Mike]

They were like, his brown. His brown isn't really drying as it's supposed to. Because that was often a complaint of Mummy Brown was that it kind of was like. Like a little bit see through. Like it wasn't as potent as the rest of their pain. Of course not. I've used a lot of it. That's the thing. So he found out one day like, that the rumors, all the rumors were true.

[Elena]

Wow.

[Mike]

And he went into his backyard that day and buried the one remaining tube he had of Mummy Brown to give it a quote, decent and proper burial.

[Elena]

Oh, that's kind of sweet.

[Mike]

Yeah, he was sweet. He was like. He was very upset about it.

[Elena]

He's like, that's a person.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Elena]

I should bury it. Yeah.

[Mike]

Isn't that nice?

[Elena]

That's sweet in the most fucking macabre way.

[Mike]

Yeah. We love an aware king.

[Elena]

We do.

[Mike]

Apparently the use of Mummy Brown, though, lasted all the way into the 20th century.

[Elena]

Damn.

[Mike]

Yeah, it died out luckily. And now you can't find it anywhere.

[Elena]

No pun intended.

[Mike]

Now you can't find it anywhere except on display at the Harvard Art Museum.

[Elena]

Oh, I want to see it.

[Mike]

There's a tube on display. I can show you a picture of it.

[Elena]

We can just see it.

[Mike]

We can just see it.

[Elena]

It's right over there.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Elena]

Let's go.

[Mike]

Foreign.

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[Mike]

Well, back to the 16th century.

[Elena]

Now back to it.

[Mike]

So these apothecaries, like I mentioned, would travel to Egypt to buy mummies from merchants to make their powders. But it was hard to tell what was authentic and what wasn't. King Francis the first of France, if you can even believe it, he was said to carry a mixture, a mixture of true mubia, which was a vicious, viscous black liquid directly extracted from a mummy who had at one time belonged to one of the wealthiest Egyptian families.

[Elena]

Holy.

[Mike]

And he, like, knew for sure he sent the right people, they robbed the right grave and they got him, they verified it, his mixture there. And he carried it in case of emergency, by the way. Yeah, like it was literally in his first aid kit.

[Elena]

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

[Mike]

So it's probably easy for a king to get what he believed to be the good stuff, but it was hard for others to ensure what was authentic and what wasn't. There were merchants who would sell camels instead of humans and there were people who thought that they were purchasing royal Egyptian bodies that they believed would contain some of the best vital spirit you could buy, who got completely bamboozled. Carl H. Dannenfeld wrote about these merchants and said the bodies now mumia had been those of slaves and other dead persons, young and old, male and female, which he had indiscriminately collected. The merchant cared not for what disease had caused these deaths. Since when embalmed, no one could tell the difference.

[Elena]

Oh, man.

[Mike]

So you somebody. Not you, like you over there, Red.

[Elena]

Yeah, me.

[Mike]

People would be out here being like, oh, I'm gonna go by like the richest Egyptian mummy that I can get because obviously they're going to contain this rich, vital spirit and you know, they're going to be buried with all these delicious.

[Elena]

Yeah, the fancy vital, you know, spirit.

[Mike]

And all the bitumen and you could receive a camel. That's what. Honestly, that's what you get.

[Elena]

I was just gonna say when you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. It's just. You might get a camel.

[Mike]

Yeah, you might.

[Elena]

And that's kind of on you.

[Mike]

But also like, think you might get somebody who died of the plague back then. You might get somebody who died of like dysentery.

[Elena]

Yeah. And you're just ingesting their shit.

[Mike]

No wonder sometimes they really were literally shit. Yeah, they actually. I didn't even include this. But just a quick side note, because it's, it's not really Corpse medicine. But it's like adjacent people would dry out feces. Like, no, like human and animal feces.

[Elena]

He just shot up from what he was doing. He was like, excuse me.

[Mike]

And they would turn it into a powder that they believed would cure cataracts. So they would just literally like fling shit into their eyes. Powder into their eyes.

[Elena]

Were they able. Here's where I'm like, we really have come far. Because I'm like, maybe, who knows? Would you be able to convince people that like dried up shit flung into your eyes?

[Mike]

I mean, they could.

[Elena]

And like, what, what line of thinking did they, did they pass through?

[Mike]

Here's the thing.

[Elena]

If you fling dried up into your eyes, it will cure your cataract.

[Mike]

Here's the thing. I didn't really go down that rabbit hole because I had to go down many other rabbit holes for this. And I found out that, you know, fecal medicine is not necessarily corpse medicine. So I left it for another day.

[Elena]

That's different.

[Mike]

Yeah, but I. But in these apothecaries they would have like little, you know, pins that would say like goose. Fecal matter.

[Elena]

Poop. You know, like they say, we sell.

[Mike]

Poop here, get your poop here. And it wasn't just cataracts.

[Elena]

It would, it would.

[Mike]

They used it for all different kinds of things.

[Elena]

Yeah, of course.

[Mike]

But that's, I mean, that's another episode.

[Elena]

Wow, that's really interesting. Yeah.

[Mike]

So people were getting duped. Anyways, back to my original point. Well, luckily, question mark, for people who couldn't afford the high end corpse medicine, there was somebody you could go to for cheaper stuff. And I guess you could at least guarantee what you were getting there.

[Elena]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mike]

Not only could you go to your local executioner for the finest entertainment of the day, but they were also one of the main suppliers of human remains at the time. Once mummies got harder to come by, people would flock to executions to get their hands on different body parts. Skulls, blood, fat tissue, you name it.

[Elena]

Delicious.

[Mike]

Eventually, executed criminals actually became the number one source for the medicine. And people back then felt like it was perfect because they could get their extra vital spirit from people dying quickly and violently. You know, they're either being beheaded or hanged.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Mike]

But they also felt better about using those kinds of bodies for medicine because these people weren't the most desirable members of society. So you didn't have like the moral implications that came with.

[Elena]

Because they were undesirable.

[Mike]

Yeah, like grave robbing. Yeah, because that's the other thing, the uptick in grave robbing.

[Elena]

Back Then. Oh, yeah.

[Mike]

Crazy.

[Elena]

Oh, you were never safe.

[Mike]

No. But at executions, you could literally buy cups of warm blood.

[Elena]

Oh.

[Mike]

And it was suggested that you do drink it while it was warm, or that you did drink it while it was warm, because that meant that the spirit of the person was still fresh. Oh. And obviously, you know, I hate that a lot. These cups sold for a lot of money. Like, it was like going to a concert and paying, like, $12 for a water, you know?

[Elena]

It was exactly like that.

[Mike]

It was similar.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Mike]

People who couldn't afford to buy a cup for themselves would either dip cloths into the blood left over from the execution site and get it that way.

[Elena]

Oh, yeah. I remember hearing this.

[Mike]

Or they would bring their own bread and dip the bread into it.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Mike]

I'm sorry, that. That image conjured in your mind seeing.

[Elena]

Thinking of somebody taking bread or taking a. Like a handkerchief and just letting it soak up the warm blood and then drank in it. We. What are we? What are we?

[Mike]

Barbarians?

[Elena]

Like, we're. We're real wild.

[Mike]

You guys remember. I don't know if you will, Elena, but do you guys remember Dave the Barbarian?

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Mike]

I just said barbarian and I literally just went barbarian, barbarian in my head.

[Elena]

Like, just so you know.

[Mike]

That show slapped you guys. Quick detour. But, yeah, at King Charles the First. Different from King Charles ii, who died after the king's drops didn't work. When he had a stroke, his dad actually was executed and people were seen mopping up his blood with their handkerchiefs at his execution site. Yeah. And obviously that would be, like, the most vital, of course, spirits that you could get. That's the king.

[Elena]

All the spirit.

[Mike]

And back then, they actually believed that. They believed in something called the Royal touch. So, like, if you even touched the king or if he allowed his hand to touch you, they believed even that touch alone could heal you.

[Elena]

Wow.

[Mike]

So imagine what his blood could do for you.

[Elena]

Imagine. You know, I can only.

[Mike]

But, yeah, back to the blood of the execution times. That was thought to be the best cure for epilepsy and tuberculosis.

[Elena]

Yeah, of course.

[Mike]

But it was also just thought to be a good drink if you wanted to stay looking young and fresh.

[Elena]

Yeah. I mean, just ask Spike. From Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I know he warms up his blood.

[Mike]

He does.

[Elena]

And he also puts weenie bits in it if he wants a little texture.

[Mike]

Yeah, he does.

[Elena]

So that's a little tip from me to you.

[Mike]

Everybody has preferences, you know, but according to Best Lovejoy, who wrote an article called A Brief History of Medical Cannibalism, Cute. Marcelo Fasino, I think, who was a highly respected 15th century Italian scholar and priest, wrote that elderly people should, quote, suck the blood of an adolescent who was clean, happy, temperate, and whose blood is excellent, but perhaps a little excessive.

[Elena]

Yep, yep.

[Mike]

If they wanted to stay young.

[Elena]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[Mike]

You know what? That young person who's clean and happy and temperate and all that, become a vampire, they might have a little extra blood and you should drink it right from them.

[Elena]

I love that. They're just like, you know what? Become a vampire.

[Mike]

Yeah, do it.

[Elena]

Let's just all. You know, I feel they're like. I feel like Twilight's gonna come out in a few hundred years and we're gonna love it. We're gonna be ahead of that.

[Mike]

They said, have you even seen Carlisle?

[Elena]

Have you even seen the skin of a killer Bella?

[Mike]

Have you even just watched Twilight? And I can't stop saying this is the skit of a killer Bella.

[Elena]

I love it so much.

[Mike]

It's the best.

[Elena]

It's so. It's an interesting movie to watch now, period. I was like, I just told everyone to be nice.

[Mike]

It's entertainment at its fine.

[Elena]

It is.

[Mike]

It's very entertaining. I started watching it the other night and I got all the way halfway through Eclipse.

[Elena]

Yeah, that's. That's a lot.

[Mike]

Yeah. I'm trying to finish the whole. I haven't watched the series through in so long. Or the.

[Elena]

No, it's been years and years and years.

[Mike]

But back to the blood.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Mike]

So you, you could suck the blood of the people who were young and temperate and happy, and then you would.

[Elena]

Get the skin of a killer.

[Mike]

I like that he specified clean too. That was smart of him.

[Elena]

That was nice.

[Mike]

But this belief actually might have been rooted in Roman history, where people allegedly would drink the blood of fallen gladiators, hoping to get some of their strength and bravery via ingestion of them.

[Elena]

Wow. Yeah. So many shortcuts people are looking for. Yeah, shortcuts that are very complicated.

[Mike]

Like maybe just lift, bro.

[Elena]

Yeah, just. Do you even lift, bro?

[Mike]

Do you even lift?

[Elena]

Maybe just make sure you're hydrated. Just drink some water.

[Mike]

Yeah. Well, the local executioners weren't just doling out cups of warm blood and stepping aside while people dipped bread in it. Like they were just having some oil and balsamic. He would also harvest the fat from executed bodies. Most of the time, he would sell it to the local apothecaries and they would melt it down to use in ointments or they would dry it out to Use it in powders. The ointments could be used topically to treat things like bruises, scars, gout, general aches and pains. And in powder form, they were also thought to stop bleeding. Sometimes they would soak bandages in human fat before they were wrapped around, like, wounds or injured bones because they thought that promoted healing.

[Elena]

You know what? That one. I can almost understand the thought process behind.

[Mike]

Yeah, no, I get that.

[Elena]

I. Like, I. We know it's ridiculous, but it's like, you can almost see the through line of thinking there.

[Mike]

Yeah. Because, like, particular one, I can't put it into words while it makes sense, but I get it a little bit.

[Elena]

Like, it doesn't. But you can understand why without any kind of knowledge of biology or anything, that that would seem to make some type of sense. It's the least intrusive of them that I can think of.

[Mike]

Well, I mean, in some cases, they were ingesting the fat, but at least in that case, they were just wrapping it around a wound and they're hoping.

[Elena]

It was, like, promotes healing, which is, like. It doesn't, but, like.

[Mike]

No, but I kind of get it.

[Elena]

But, yeah, I can. I'm like, all right. Yeah, that one's not as offensive.

[Mike]

Well, it was especially popular. It was a especially popular form of corpse medicine during wartime. Makes sense. Army surgeons like Dr. Goddard, who I mentioned earlier, would go out onto the battlefield and literally fill up bags of fat from fallen soldiers.

[Elena]

That's horrifying.

[Mike]

And they would take the huge bags back to medical tents and treat wounded. Wounded soldiers with the fat of fallen soldiers.

[Elena]

Damn.

[Mike]

Yeah. Like, was so bleak back.

[Elena]

Gnarly, like. And the fact that she just hearing they were harvesting fat from fallen soldiers.

[Mike]

Do you.

[Elena]

That entails a lot.

[Mike]

You have to picture that first.

[Elena]

That entails a very gnarly image. And also gruesome.

[Mike]

Probably harvesting their skulls as well, you know?

[Elena]

Oh, my God. Yeah. Oh, my God.

[Mike]

You also might remember from some of our coverage of the Paris Catacombs, that leftover fat from the surplus of bodies there at that time was used to make soap and candles.

[Elena]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mike]

Love that.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Luckily, though, by the 18th century, the Enlightenment slash, the age of reason came along, and people started looking a little deeper into science and actual medicine. And they were like, hey, you know what's crazy? None of this seems to work, and everyone is still dying super young.

[Elena]

So wild.

[Mike]

I feel like we should try something.

[Elena]

Else, you know, that seems to be, like, a through line in our species. Because, like, even when, like, we were talking about this, like, a few days ago that, like, during the Salem witch trials, everyone's like, how did it stop? And it's like, it literally stopped because they, like, pressed to death an old man.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Elena]

In a field, naked. And they were. And some people were like.

[Mike]

Like, I think we went too far.

[Elena]

This is weird, what we're doing. Like, this is weird.

[Ash]

At least.

[Mike]

You know, I'm hopeful that that actually starts to happen soon again.

[Elena]

I hope that. Yeah.

[Mike]

People start looking around and being like.

[Elena]

Hey, it's fucking weird.

[Mike]

Really gross what we're doing. Maybe we should stop.

[Elena]

Let's stop.

[Mike]

Maybe we should.

[Elena]

It is a trait of our species, so, you know, it's very, very well. Could happen again.

[Mike]

It always gets worse, but it seems.

[Elena]

To happen there, too. It's just like, everyone's like, huh, yeah, none of this is working. We should stop.

[Mike]

Yeah. I think they were definitely feeling weird, too, about the movie. Moral implications that were involved. Yeah.

[Elena]

I love. For, like, a long time. They were just like. I guess we just deal with it, I guess.

[Mike]

You know, once we ran out of bodies to steal, at least we were eating criminals.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Like, it's medicinal happiness.

[Elena]

Very much like a hunter's mentality that. It's like, well, I use everything on the animal. Yeah. So it's fine.

[Mike]

Yeah. You know, I mean, it also got harder to supply mummies from Egypt. And people were also catching on to, like, the trickery involved.

[Elena]

Oh, yeah. The snake oil of it all.

[Mike]

Yeah. But mostly people just got smarter and a little more empathetic.

[Elena]

Good for us.

[Mike]

But shockingly enough, the last recorded listing of a mummy for sale was in a magazine in the 20th century. 1924, to be exact.

[Elena]

So I guess not really good for us.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Elena]

I can't really give us too much of a pat on the back.

[Mike]

Just a little tap, tap.

[Elena]

It's a little like, we're getting there. Yeah.

[Mike]

And that, my friends, is a brief history of corpse medicine.

[Elena]

That is fascinating.

[Mike]

It was really fun to dive into.

[Elena]

I loved that.

[Mike]

Maybe next I'll look into fecal medicine.

[Elena]

As you should. Mikey said absolutely no medicine.

[Mike]

I wanted to include it, but I got, like, very OCD about it. I was like, well, technically it's not corpse medicine, because it's not. Dead People did that. So I'll go into it another time.

[Elena]

This was great. I liked this.

[Ash]

I'm glad.

[Mike]

I had a feeling you would love this.

[Elena]

Yeah. Anytime I get to reference it goes song. During a. Yeah. During a morbid episode. I'm here for it. Yeah.

[Mike]

And talk about people, like, dipping their.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Bread into their bread into fallen blood. Fuck.

[Elena]

Like warm execution blood.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Elena]

Damn.

[Mike]

I mean, I read something that was like, is it all that different from taking the Eucharist? I mean, at church they're like, here's the blood of Jesus. Yeah, that's real up.

[Elena]

I guess one. One is symbolic and one is, luckily, literal.

[Mike]

Luckily, it's moved on to symbolism. But symbolism, back then, they were less.

[Elena]

Symbolic about it, apparently.

[Mike]

Fucking crazy.

[Elena]

Damn. Yeah. That's wild crazy. Well, thank you for that.

[Mike]

You're welcome. It conjures up so many images, doesn't it?

[Elena]

Yeah, it really does.

[Mike]

All right, well, thank you for joining us on our little bonus episode for Halloweeny Hell yeah. And we hope you keep listening, and we hope you keep it weird, but not so weird that you go to corpse medicine as a way to treat your ailments. It's not going to work.

[Elena]

It's not. But go listen to Mummy Dust by ghost.

[Mike]

Mummy dust. Doesn't that talk about.

[Elena]

No, I don't even think it is.

[Mike]

Oh, it's not.

[Elena]

It's literally about, like, snake oil salesmen. Oh, that's. It's referring to the corpse medicine aspect of it.

[Mike]

This one goes out to Tobias Forge.