September 27, 2011 • 33 mins
Houdini suggested that sword swallowing was merely a trick. But there's no sleight of hand or throat to this ancient practice. Practitioners really do swallow swords, car axles and more. Learn more about sword swallowers in this gag-reflexive episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know?
From house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
(00:20):
which makes this stuff you should know? Like you didn't know,
and if this is your first time, if you really
didn't know, Welcome to the dark Side. Your life has
just fever changed. You are officially addicted. That's right. Um, yeah,
that's that's what I got. I'll take shoulders for five
hundred back. Okay, yeah, yeah, and that way you said
(00:44):
when I suggested this one, I typed it. Yeah, and
I think you thought it was funnier when I typed it.
I heard it, Okay, I heard I heard it in
my head founded, much like that. Darrell Hammond, Sean Connery, Yeah, um, Chuck, Yes,
have you ever seen in the movie Days Being Confused? Uh? Yeah,
In fact, I remember the first time I saw that movie.
(01:05):
Oh yeah, let's here in Athens at the Georgia Theater.
That was a great place to see that movie. That
was wonderful. Remember when whenever they showed I think his
name was Washington. That no, which character the black guy.
I think you're thinking of the sweat Hogs. That was Washington, right,
(01:26):
But I think his name was Washington Took. I think
I'm not sure, but yes, clearly I could just be
thinking of that guy because they both have frozen. They
were set in the seventies. But um, he has that paddle,
it says soul poll on it. Do you remember like
the whole theater just erupting the first time that showed
that that was awesome. I remember I thought Matthew McConaughey
(01:46):
was not an actor. Oh, like, he was really Waterson.
I thought he was a real dude. They just dug
up in Texas. Oh yeah, because that was like the
beginning of his career, the first thing I ever saw
him and Ben Affleck and that's It's a great movie.
Parker Posey. Yeah, well that brings me to my point.
Parker Posey, you remember the part during the Beer Bust
(02:07):
where Parker Posey's funneling beer through a beer bong and
like she's got it for like a half a second,
maybe a second and a half, and then but it
just like pours out her mouth and all over her face.
At that moment. The first thing I thought of is
I'm sure everybody thought as well when they saw that
very suggestive part was Parker Posey would be terrible at
(02:31):
sword swallowing. That's what I thought, because it takes a
certain amount of relaxation to swallow a sword, and after research,
I found that a sword swallow will make an excellent
beer funneler. I haven't funnel the beer in a long
Time's been a while for me. It's probably good when
you're forty to be able to say that I lost
(02:54):
access to beer funnels, and I think that's kind of
what happens. Like you just don't go to places where
there's a beer final not anymore. But you can always
shock in a beer as long as you have a
pen and a beer can. I never got into any
of that, to be honest, kig stands all that silliness.
I was just like, just have a drink it. I
don't prefer being upside down. I've never done a kigstand
(03:14):
really never. It's really um. You're like, you know what
it feels like to be torn apart by a gang
of angry toughs because there's like a couple of guys
like you're Yeah, you're it's really kind of scary. You're
on the edge there. We don't recommend any of those
things now. And while we're at it, this is the
ultimate c o A. Please anyone out there, never ever,
(03:37):
ever try to swallow a sword or anything except food,
obviously in beverage, right, but no food larger than the
end of a football. Yeah, do not do not do
not try this at home ever ever ever. Okay, Yeah,
Josh and Chuck officially think you're stupid if you try
to swallow anything after listening to this, or if you
(03:58):
participate in backyard wrestling. Yes, equally dangerous. All right, so Chuck, um,
let's talk about swords swallowing. I'm excited about this one.
Kind of cool. Yeah. Um, this is part of our
ongoing circus arts collection. Have we already done one human cannonball? Okay,
we've gotta get tight rope in there and then we're
all set. Well, we need to do like freaks too.
(04:22):
Uh yeah, just sideshow freaks, or maybe even like a
history of the sideshow. That would be pretty awesome, I agreed. Alright, So, um,
what other kind of freaks would I've just been talking about?
I don't know, um, you know the kind of meat
on the Friday night have you seen have you seen
that movie Freaks? Oh yeah, we've talked about that one,
all right. Um, yes, so Chuck, let's talk about the
(04:43):
history of sword swallowing, shall we. Yeah. I was kind
of surprised to learn that it started out with sort
of religious undertones or are they overtones? I think sword
swallowing is so that, um, it would be an overtone
and overtone. It's not very subtle. Early on in India
about four thousand years ago, they kind of the same
(05:05):
folks who are doing the firewalking and snake handling to
sort of show their oneness with God would swallow swords. Yeah,
like they were protected and they will be like look
what I can do. Yeah, I'm boastful. Yeah, funk here
this is what they're called. F A k I r
okay um and uh. Yeah, sword swallowing has been around
(05:26):
for four thousand years. Uh. And there's apparently still a tribe,
although I couldn't find, um the name of the tribe,
but it's in the Indian state of andrew Pradesh. And
um they apparently still passed down sword swallowing skills from
father to son. Yeah. Yeah, so we know where it
came from and we know it's ancient. Started in India,
started to move around the Far East, the Mid East. Um.
(05:49):
Typical path things will follow China, Japan, Mid East language civilization.
It all just followed the same path as sword swallowing
hit Japan, UM and China. In the eighth century, a
d in Japan and became part of Sanu Sangaku Sangaku
one of those two, which is basically like street performance, right. Um.
(06:14):
And then apparently it got picked up again later on
in India again and it's the cradle of it. Um
by the whirling dervishes, the rebirth of swords swallowing, Yes,
the first one by the dervishes, right. The whirling dervish.
Dervish is a beggar of the Sufi mystic order of
(06:35):
monks and um, they would kind of whip themselves into
a frenzy, hence the term whirling dervish. Uh. And there's
a specific order of dervishes um called the Order of
Refis refights. My Indians getting rusty and they eat glass,
walk on coals, swallow swords basically the original it's like
(06:59):
a revival of the original the original reason people would
swallow swords. And then it comes to Europe, and as
with all things that came to Europe from the outside,
the Catholic Church persecuted anyone who could swallow a sword
man fun killers back in the day, but that was
not enough to kill it. It was basically just a
(07:21):
loss of enthusiasm by the public. Um by the nineteenth
century in in Europe, everybody's like, we've seen this before,
we know what's going on. It's all an illusion, a trick,
which we'll get to in a minute. Um. But then
it hits America and there's a guy um from Madras,
an Indian man named Senna Sama. And on November seventeen,
(07:46):
which will henceforth in the s Y s K Pantheon
of dates be referred to as sword Swallowing Day, Yeah uh,
in New York City at St. John's Hall, for one dollar,
adults could see the first person to ever swallow us
order in the United States and for a dollars a
lot of money back then, I agreed, but this is
a big deal, and you would think it would have
(08:07):
taken off right then, but no, it wasn't until eighteen
nine at the Chicago World's Fair that it became very
popular in the US. Yeah, I wonder what else was
big that year that wasn't the ice cream here wasn't now, No,
that was St. Louis in nineteen o three. Okay, so
pretty ice cream of course, Swords wallow Horse. You know,
if ice cream had been around, people be back. I'd
(08:28):
rather to see ice cream, right. This was the year
that electricity was a big one. Yeah, that was the
one that The Devil in the White City is said. Okay,
it's pretty good, but you can wait for the movie. Now,
that was it coming out. Apparently Leo DiCaprio is playing
the bad guy. Of course he is. I don't know
why I said that he rarely plays bad guys. Yeah
(08:52):
that's true. Yeah, although he wasn't that good of a
guy in Shutter Island. Uh, well, we don't want to
ruin that. It doesn't at her okay. Uh. It died
out again in the nineteen fifties because of you know,
it's on the carnival circuit and I guess all these
new fangled rides sort of took away from the whole
(09:12):
side show aspect. And then I love how this points
out that the you know, The Internet and video games
also helped kill swords swallowing, Like, really, yeah, I didn't
know that one had anything to do with the other.
It did. The Internet and video games pretty much killed
everything but the Internet and video games and TV. Yeah,
but now you can research and watch sort swallowing on
(09:33):
the internet. Now that is gorgeous thinking. I'm very impressive
that one. Alright, So that's pretty much the history of
swords swallowing. There's I guess towards the beginning of the
twentieth century when it became very popular in the US.
There is also a lot of controversy over whether it
(09:56):
was a trick or an illusion, and Harry Houdini himself
said it's a trick. There's a trick to it, and
he wrote in um, his very famous book The Miracle Mongers,
and expose right um that people who swallow swords first
backstage swallow a metal sheath that they slide the sword into.
(10:19):
All Right, I gotta stop you here. How it's you're
still swallowing the thing that's just as long and it's
made of metal, and you're pretending like it's not in there.
You're walking around talking a lot. I don't know it
seems easier just to learn to swallow this. I mean,
it's not like and we'll cover this. Actually, might as
well go ahead and say it. The swords that they
swallow aren't sharp edged. No, they are still pointyes, but
(10:41):
it's not like they're swallowing razor blades. I get the
impression that they're pointy ish. Well, yeah, a dull point
I would say, yes, But I mean that can't be
much worse than the sheath. So I think the sheath
is Maybe Houdini was being funny and Tracy Wilson missed that. Maybe.
So she goes on to point out that the Encyclopedia
(11:01):
Britannica says that it's a magic trick as well, and
that it's not a that it is some sort of
illusion or hoax or fraud. But really, apparently the the
basis of um sword swallowing is quite real. Like the
person is swallowing a sword, right, So let's how how
(11:26):
do you do that? Well, Josh, if you're gonna talk
about swallowing a sword, then we need to talk about swallowing.
And if you're gonna talk about swallowing, you got to
talk about the g I tract. Yes, not the g
I bill, the g I gastro intestinal tract. It's got
a couple of types of muscle. It's got a skeletal
muscle tissue and smooth muscle tissue, little lubrication layer called mucosa.
(11:51):
And then skeletal muscle is involunteery, I'm sorry, voluntary, And
if you're talking about your upper g I, you're talking
about your mouth, you're farring in your upper esophagus. The
smooth muscle is involuntary, and they work in concert to
help you swallow junk. Right, So the top stuff is
all voluntary, Like you can move your tongue, you can,
(12:14):
you can. Yeah, you start off doing it on purpose
when you chew and swallow, right, But then it gets
to a certain point past the what is it, the
upper esophageal um sphincter. Yeah, that just cracts me out.
Once it gets past that, which is kind of high
up towards the top of the esophagus. Yes, then it's
like you said, it becomes all involuntary. It's automatic, which
(12:35):
makes it very difficult to control anything that happens after that. Yeah, specifically,
the you know, your epic epiglotis goes into action because
that keeps stuff from going down into your lungs, which
you don't want. Bullus is food is chewed food and saliva.
That's the best word ever in bullus b O, l u,
s and um. Once you've done all the voluntary action,
(12:57):
it does a pretty cool thing. It gets down to
the part of your esophagus as the smooth muscle, the
involuntary muscle and paristalsis takes over and that's basically you're
It just squeezes it down like an inch at a time. Yeah,
you know how your esophagus is ringed, Yeah, right, Um,
(13:18):
those rings are little bands of muscle, and then they
squeeze just above the bullus and just shut it down there.
Finally it gets to the lower esophageals fixter and that opens.
You have to laugh every time that that opens, and
the bullus drops into the stomach to be digested and
(13:39):
then eventually pooped out. So that's what happens. That's that's
life that we just described life. The trick here, not trick,
but on the way down it passes by things like
your trachea, your heart, your a order which I thought
was part of the heart. Well it's a it's the artery,
(14:03):
the main artery that connects to the heart, and I
saw the vena cava was also separate. That's the main vein. Yeah,
And the diaphragm is the the muscle that moves up
and down which allows us to breathe. And and we
say all this because the sword is passing right through there. Yeah,
(14:25):
I mean it takes the same path as your food does. Yeah,
pretty much, yeah, pretty much exactly. We have our ribs
because we've got so many vital organs right there, they
need extra protecting um. And so we circumvent the ribs
when we swallow swords and just go directly past all
that stuff, all that soft tissue, right. Yeah. But there's
a difference, a big difference here. Swallowing food requires a
(14:49):
lot of contraction of muscles, and which you want to
do when you swallow a sword, is you want to
relax all those muscles, even the involuntary ones, which is
we'll get in into how to do that in a
minute here. But it's sort of the opposite of even
though it follows the same path, the muscles are doing
things they shouldn't do, aren't trained to do, at least, well,
(15:11):
that's kind of the point of sworce swallowing. Like if
you one of the reasons we warned you against sword
swallowing is because you can't just swallow a sword the
first time you try it. No, you you could, but
you would kill yourself. Um. Sword swallowing actually takes a
lot of practice, and a lot of horrible, horrible practice too. Um.
(15:32):
You have to train. You have to train your involuntary
muscle to work voluntarily, right, Yeah, or to not volunteer
at all. That's a great point by by um relaxing.
So the voluntary stuff, and let's talk about this. This
is I guess now we've reached sword swallowing one on one.
(15:55):
The first part is easy because it's all voluntary muscle.
You move your tongue out of the Yeah, you open
your throat. Um, you tell your head back. You always
see a sword swallower tilts his head back. It's intuitive.
But at the same time, the reason why is because
they're lining up the pharynx, the throat with the esophagus
so that it's a straight shot as straight as possible
(16:16):
from the from the mouth all the way down right.
That's right, um. And then after that, chuck, well, you
slip the sword down in there, and it passes through
the mouth and pharynx and upper esophagal sphincter into the
esophagus itself. And the esophagus has got a little curve
(16:37):
to it, so the sword is actually gonna straighten it out.
And Tracy even points out that sometimes it's nudging organs
out of the way as well on the way down.
That's why you usually swallow a swords slowly and and
the lube sword as well. Yeah uh. And then um
loose either by saliva or artificially, right, some people use
um uh petroleum jelly or vegetable or something, whatever your
(16:59):
flavor is. So that's how it's done. Pretty cool, that's right.
That's pretty much all there is too. It's but again
it takes some tremendous practice. Um. And also depending on
the type of the story of the length of the sword.
You said it was blunted, it's not sharp, still kind
of pointy, but it's as dull as possible. Um. But
(17:24):
the length of the sword is also very important as well. Um.
Usually from your teeth to the cardia, which is uh
where basically where the stomach connects to the esophagus, where
your lower esophageal sphincter is. Um, it's about forty centimes
in the average person. Yeah, okay, so right, so if
(17:47):
you swallow a sword that's longer than forty centimeters, um,
you are going to it's gonna have to go into
your stomach. That's that's a big deal. Yeah. And what
I've gotten is most sword allowers don't do that. Um,
it's not by accident that the Sword Swallowers Swallowers Association
International UH defines that length at thirty eight centimeters. That
(18:13):
you know, to qualify. So if it's forty centimeters, they said,
let's make it get a couple of centimeters short, right,
But this is just the typical person. It could be
much shorter. That's just to qualify. I don't know, I
thought it had to be that long. No, No, I'm
saying you're the distance cardia could be shorter. So even
with that shorter sword, you still may be in your stomach.
(18:33):
But yes, if you just if you get it all
the way down to a couple of centimeters above your cardia,
the s s AI, it still considers you a sword swallower,
which I think is nice. That is nice, but chuck, Um,
if you if you are taking a sword all the
way down to your cardia into your stomach, the sword
is literally in your stomach. That's crazy. Not only have
(18:55):
you relaxed, like all the voluntary muscles in your mouth,
you've relaxed all of voluntary muscles on your on your
larynx and in your esophagus right, all the involuntary muscles.
But you've also managed to figure out how to relax
both of your esophageal sphincters, the top one and the
one above your stomach, so that you can pass a
(19:16):
sword through without damaging it. And is nuts. And they
do recommend, by the way, um, nothing over twenty four
sixty one because at that point you were well into
your stomach. Yeah, that's the s s ai again. Yeah,
And I guess anything over that you might go hit
the bottom of the stomach, but you don't want to do. Also,
(19:39):
I want to point out that there is also a
long tradition of sword swallowers who juggle, and often do
this on horseback while juggling dude, unicycles, cartwheels, They do
all sorts of crazy things. So really, to me, just
standing stock still and swallowing a sword, that's impressive. Have
you ever seen drop? There's this. I don't know if
(20:02):
it's a new move, but it's a move where you
put it down like halfway and then you move your
hands and you let it drop by itself and you
actually tighten your catch it with your esophageal muscles. That
is control, pretty good control. Yeah, yeah, And they always
take it out really quick to if you notice, because
(20:24):
you're we'll talk about the gag reflex, but you're suspending
that and you can only do that for so long.
That's why they you know, you see him do it
and then it's like tada, and they yank it back
out really quickly because they want to live. That's right. Yeah. Um, well,
speaking of the gag reflex, that's one of the things
that has to be overcome and training, you know. Let's
(20:45):
let's get into the reflexing. Okay, Well, reflexes exist outside
of the brain. They're actually regulated by the brain stem.
I didn't know that. Actually, Well, that's how how somebody
can still be considered alive even though their higher faculties
are gone, because they still have reflexes. It makes sense.
I just never really out about it that way. But well,
may I describe how it reflects works. So basically, you
have a receptor nerve ending that detects, in this case,
(21:09):
in your throat detects some sort of object or intrusion
that shouldn't be there. Basically, the only stuff that should
be there is fluid and chewed food as far as
your receptors are concerned. But yes, if a sword or
any other metal object um makes its way into your throat,
the receptors are going to figure this out and they're
gonna send an electrical impulse to your central nervous system
(21:31):
in the brain stem. The in the integration center is
what it's called. Yeah, that's kind of like it's kind
of sounded to me like a call center. Like literally,
I mean, it happens so quick, but it's like, what's
the nature of your emergency, sir? Exactly, Like I've got
a sword in my throat, but this is the brain stem.
So it's all done on like um punch cards like
they used to play Tic tac toe in the hanging chads. Um.
(21:55):
So your your brain stem says, Okay, well there shouldn't
be a metal object there. Just go ahead and direct
the muscles of the throat to gag and that produces
what's called a wretch, and that's meant to expel the
foreign object. What swords followers do is mute or dull
this reflex so that it doesn't happen at all, and
(22:17):
they do it by setting it off time after time
after time, unbelievable. They make themselves gag as much as
they can until it doesn't work, which is dangerous. It's
very dangerous. And if you didn't get the idea before
from the initial c O, a sword swallowing is a
very very dangerous pastime, profession, whatever you're using it for,
(22:42):
I would imagine there at a higher risk for choking. Choking, Um, yeah,
because the point of the gag reflexes to get that
stuff out. That piece of steak comes flying out when
you wretch it up. Uh. And ideally, if you don't
have a gag reflex, then yeah, that's bad news because
that steak just stays in there and die. You know.
I had a friend um who when I was in
(23:03):
elementary school, his mom got an emergency tracking out of
me with a steak knife. Oh yeah, Dad, you always
hear about the stories she had the little scar and
everything cheese. Someone in a restaurant door. Oh wow, yeah,
I mean a steak knife, no anesthesia, know nothing, steak
knife and then a straw or pent cheese. I've never
(23:24):
seen anything good like that happen. I didn't see it happen. Yeah,
but I mean I've never I'm just saying I've never
seen any like awesome life saving situation. I want to
be a part of one one day, just not on
the side. Uh so what what other dangers? They actually
did a study um of and they want to ignoble
(23:45):
prize for the study. I found out in two thousand
seven and they studied a hundred and ten um English
speaking sword swallowers and basically just ask him a bunch
of questions about their health. And they called it sword
throat when they get a sore throat. Yeah, I thought
that was kind of clever. Clever. So throat pain, um
(24:07):
lower chest pain, persistent lower chest pain, internal bleeding occasionally.
I saw this one lady who was coughing up blood
and they found out that she had like nicked part
of her esophagus way down, which imagine it's common um
esophical perforations like we just talked about. Uh, how do
you say that pleurisy, inflammation of the lungs, and paracarditis,
(24:32):
which is inflammation of the sack that protects the heart.
And that's in descending order of how often those things happened.
So everyone gets the sword throat, it seems like, but
probably very few actually got inflammation of the the paricardium, right.
They also figured out that, um, there was a trend
among sword swallowers where if they had a particularly rough performance, um,
(24:58):
the inflammation that would result resulted in further injury. So
like they would be okay during the performance, but you know,
they had a little trouble getting it down, but then
a day later or something they broke their esophagus or
something like that. And then also apparently sinus infections are
common because you're you're passing the sword with petroleum jelly
(25:21):
and whatever hair and gun get picked up in between
the time you put the petroleum jelly on and the
time you swallowed it right past the sinuses, which can
be sensitive. I can attest, and I imagine the circus
side show isn't the cleanest area on the planet, you,
I think, imagine correctly, you know what I'm saying. Um,
there's also death is a side effect of sword swallowing
(25:44):
from time to time. Um. Another British medical journal study
cited the death of a man who um swallowed an
umbrella or tried to and died. My first question was,
did he accidentally try and open it? You hit the button.
It's like Tom and Jerry totally. His body flares out
like an umbrella. It's like Tom and Jerry, except real life.
(26:06):
And said, that's right. Um. World sword Swallowers Day, two
thousand ten. What it sounds like is that they gathered
sword swallowers at Ripley's believe it or not, all over
the country to do this all at once to perform
um and Red Stewart, your buddy Red. He swallowed a
(26:27):
world record fifty two swords at a time. Oh man,
I don't know if that's official or unofficial Guinness certified.
But George the Giant swallowed a thirty seven inch sword
at the Hollywood believe it or not. Jeez, So that's
they recommend twenty four inches max. Because you're in the
stomach thirty seven inches. That's longer than three ft. That's crazy. Uh.
(26:50):
Dan Meyer swallowed a giant straight razor and hedge clippers
in Dallas at the belief that they're not there. Travis
Festler swallowed a sword with cockroaches crawling around it, um,
crawling on the sword. And guess where this one happened Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Um.
(27:10):
What else a hundred and twenty degree curve sword at
the Ripley's Believe It or Not in Ocean City, Maryland,
and I'm just amazed over, you know. And finally, Mike
Harrison at the Orlando Believe it or Not, swallowed a
sword that was driven down his throat by the discharge
of a gun. I don't know how that happened, but
wait what happened? Apparently it was shot into his mouth
(27:33):
from a gun. I don't know. I'd like to see
that one. Yeah, that's kind at the at the Internet,
which is first killed and then now supports sword swallowing.
And also Red Stewart, who you mentioned, who swallowed fifty
two swords at once. I guess his former record was
twenty five. Um. But before that, this impresses me the most.
(27:57):
He in V seven he swallowed a our axel. Well
they do. Tracy pointed out people swallowed dipsticks and other
straight metal things. Yeah, that's pretty amazing. Stuff. Yeah, that's
got to be pretty big around too. Yeah, and people
have swallowed snakes. I found this guy, Oh that sucks
(28:19):
for the snake. Yeah, I think the snake lives. Yeah,
but still he's like, well, sure, what are you doing? Well,
the snake is probably like I'm getting eaten by another snake,
you know. Yeah, okay, so it's just desserts then. But
this dude in the eighteen forties sal Uh salam intro
the snake swallower. He uh have a couple of good
quotes from him. They fancy that it hurts you, but
(28:41):
it don't, or what a fool I should be to
do it. I don't mean to say it don't hurt
you at first, because it do. For my swallow was
very bad and I couldn't eat anything but liquids for
two months whilst I was learning. I cured my swallow
whilst I was stretching it with lemon and sugar. And
then he learned this that was sore, doesn't He learned
to swallow a snake and said, the snakes are about
(29:04):
eighteen inches long, and you must first cut the stingers
out because it might hurt you. When I first began
swallowing snakes. They tasted queer, like they draw the roof
of your mouth a bit. It's a roughish taste. Apparently,
the scales like it's easier going down than it is
coming back up. I could see that, the way the
scales are laying, I could totally see that. So we
(29:26):
don't recommend swallowing snakes either, and I don't know if
anyone still does that. That might be a nineteenth century
swallowing steaks. Snakes swallow steaks a lot. Yeah, it's not tough. Um, Well,
I guess that's it. You've got anything else, Well, if
you want to see some pretty cool images about um,
(29:47):
sword swallowing with a strange like kind of um superhero
worship ee um man, he was buff too. Yeah, there's
a there's a period around how S works where like
comic book geeks like kind of ruled the place, right,
and so this is acceptable in some way. Yeah, it's
definitely look different than our other illustrations. Right, So if
(30:09):
you want to, um, if you want to see those
weird illustrations and learn as much as you possibly can
about sword swallowing, uh and the circus arts in general,
we have a whole circus arts section. Did you know
that I just let you say circus arts. Um, it's uh.
Any of that stuff can be typed into the search
bar how stuff works dot com and that means, now, Chuck,
(30:31):
it's time for listen to mail. I'm gonna call this
blood type follow up. Guys are just googled good podcast
and found your name, and I think you're serious. Although
I google good podcast and I didn't see anything. What
comes up? Uh? There was one article about how to
(30:52):
do a good podcast and it was like, enunciate very clearly,
stick to the point, and keep it short. We're away
of breaking rules. Uh. So I just enjoyed your latest
podcasts and have a contribution on the subject of blood type.
To put it simply, the transfusion rate is sixty to
ninety million eaters per hour for the first fifteen minutes,
(31:13):
although each hospital has its own policy in an exact rate,
but it UH on average it is sixty to ninety
After about fifteen minutes, the rate can be advanced to
one hundred to one hundred and twenty million eaters per hour.
The rationale is that if an acute hemolytic reaction is
going to occur at will happened in the first fifteen
(31:34):
minutes of a transfusion, and the slow rate keeps the
infused volume low. So, using a little advanced math to
answer your question, it takes as little as sixteen to
twenty two point five million leads of incompatible blood to
cause a reaction. Of course, these are rough estimates, that
they do give you a hint of how a little
bad blood can cause a big problem. Thanks for doing
(31:55):
the show. I look forward to going back and listening
to old shows as well as the current new ones.
I hope I didn't just make myself look like an idiot.
Far from it, Dan, you sounded pretty dang smart, I
would say so. Um. Yeah. Also, it's really weird to
U two get feedback that quickly, like we recorded that
(32:16):
two days ago and bam, we've got an answer. I
really enjoyed that. We I kind of wish we could
do this alive, but that wouldn't work. We've tried that before.
It never does work. Um, well, I guess it's it.
Do you have anything Do you want to call for anything? Uh? Okay, um,
(32:37):
if you have any kind of circus arts background or
your family, does we want to hear about it? Because
we find that kind of stuff fascinating. Um. Also, by
the way, the black guy in Dason confused his named
Melvin Spivey. Really it was way off, so sorry about that. UM.
You can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast.
(33:00):
You can send us stuff on Facebook at facebook dot
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how Stuff works dot com. Be sure to check out
our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how
(33:20):
Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising and
perplexing possibilities of tomorrow, brought to you by the reinvented
two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know?
From house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
(00:20):
which makes this stuff you should know? Like you didn't know,
and if this is your first time, if you really
didn't know, Welcome to the dark Side. Your life has
just fever changed. You are officially addicted. That's right. Um, yeah,
that's that's what I got. I'll take shoulders for five
hundred back. Okay, yeah, yeah, and that way you said
(00:44):
when I suggested this one, I typed it. Yeah, and
I think you thought it was funnier when I typed it.
I heard it, Okay, I heard I heard it in
my head founded, much like that. Darrell Hammond, Sean Connery, Yeah, um, Chuck, Yes,
have you ever seen in the movie Days Being Confused? Uh? Yeah,
In fact, I remember the first time I saw that movie.
(01:05):
Oh yeah, let's here in Athens at the Georgia Theater.
That was a great place to see that movie. That
was wonderful. Remember when whenever they showed I think his
name was Washington. That no, which character the black guy.
I think you're thinking of the sweat Hogs. That was Washington, right,
(01:26):
But I think his name was Washington Took. I think
I'm not sure, but yes, clearly I could just be
thinking of that guy because they both have frozen. They
were set in the seventies. But um, he has that paddle,
it says soul poll on it. Do you remember like
the whole theater just erupting the first time that showed
that that was awesome. I remember I thought Matthew McConaughey
(01:46):
was not an actor. Oh, like, he was really Waterson.
I thought he was a real dude. They just dug
up in Texas. Oh yeah, because that was like the
beginning of his career, the first thing I ever saw
him and Ben Affleck and that's It's a great movie.
Parker Posey. Yeah, well that brings me to my point.
Parker Posey, you remember the part during the Beer Bust
(02:07):
where Parker Posey's funneling beer through a beer bong and
like she's got it for like a half a second,
maybe a second and a half, and then but it
just like pours out her mouth and all over her face.
At that moment. The first thing I thought of is
I'm sure everybody thought as well when they saw that
very suggestive part was Parker Posey would be terrible at
(02:31):
sword swallowing. That's what I thought, because it takes a
certain amount of relaxation to swallow a sword, and after research,
I found that a sword swallow will make an excellent
beer funneler. I haven't funnel the beer in a long
Time's been a while for me. It's probably good when
you're forty to be able to say that I lost
(02:54):
access to beer funnels, and I think that's kind of
what happens. Like you just don't go to places where
there's a beer final not anymore. But you can always
shock in a beer as long as you have a
pen and a beer can. I never got into any
of that, to be honest, kig stands all that silliness.
I was just like, just have a drink it. I
don't prefer being upside down. I've never done a kigstand
(03:14):
really never. It's really um. You're like, you know what
it feels like to be torn apart by a gang
of angry toughs because there's like a couple of guys
like you're Yeah, you're it's really kind of scary. You're
on the edge there. We don't recommend any of those
things now. And while we're at it, this is the
ultimate c o A. Please anyone out there, never ever,
(03:37):
ever try to swallow a sword or anything except food,
obviously in beverage, right, but no food larger than the
end of a football. Yeah, do not do not do
not try this at home ever ever ever. Okay, Yeah,
Josh and Chuck officially think you're stupid if you try
to swallow anything after listening to this, or if you
(03:58):
participate in backyard wrestling. Yes, equally dangerous. All right, so Chuck, um,
let's talk about swords swallowing. I'm excited about this one.
Kind of cool. Yeah. Um, this is part of our
ongoing circus arts collection. Have we already done one human cannonball? Okay,
we've gotta get tight rope in there and then we're
all set. Well, we need to do like freaks too.
(04:22):
Uh yeah, just sideshow freaks, or maybe even like a
history of the sideshow. That would be pretty awesome, I agreed. Alright, So, um,
what other kind of freaks would I've just been talking about?
I don't know, um, you know the kind of meat
on the Friday night have you seen have you seen
that movie Freaks? Oh yeah, we've talked about that one,
all right. Um, yes, so Chuck, let's talk about the
(04:43):
history of sword swallowing, shall we. Yeah. I was kind
of surprised to learn that it started out with sort
of religious undertones or are they overtones? I think sword
swallowing is so that, um, it would be an overtone
and overtone. It's not very subtle. Early on in India
about four thousand years ago, they kind of the same
(05:05):
folks who are doing the firewalking and snake handling to
sort of show their oneness with God would swallow swords. Yeah,
like they were protected and they will be like look
what I can do. Yeah, I'm boastful. Yeah, funk here
this is what they're called. F A k I r
okay um and uh. Yeah, sword swallowing has been around
(05:26):
for four thousand years. Uh. And there's apparently still a tribe,
although I couldn't find, um the name of the tribe,
but it's in the Indian state of andrew Pradesh. And
um they apparently still passed down sword swallowing skills from
father to son. Yeah. Yeah, so we know where it
came from and we know it's ancient. Started in India,
started to move around the Far East, the Mid East. Um.
(05:49):
Typical path things will follow China, Japan, Mid East language civilization.
It all just followed the same path as sword swallowing
hit Japan, UM and China. In the eighth century, a
d in Japan and became part of Sanu Sangaku Sangaku
one of those two, which is basically like street performance, right. Um.
(06:14):
And then apparently it got picked up again later on
in India again and it's the cradle of it. Um
by the whirling dervishes, the rebirth of swords swallowing, Yes,
the first one by the dervishes, right. The whirling dervish.
Dervish is a beggar of the Sufi mystic order of
(06:35):
monks and um, they would kind of whip themselves into
a frenzy, hence the term whirling dervish. Uh. And there's
a specific order of dervishes um called the Order of
Refis refights. My Indians getting rusty and they eat glass,
walk on coals, swallow swords basically the original it's like
(06:59):
a revival of the original the original reason people would
swallow swords. And then it comes to Europe, and as
with all things that came to Europe from the outside,
the Catholic Church persecuted anyone who could swallow a sword
man fun killers back in the day, but that was
not enough to kill it. It was basically just a
(07:21):
loss of enthusiasm by the public. Um by the nineteenth
century in in Europe, everybody's like, we've seen this before,
we know what's going on. It's all an illusion, a trick,
which we'll get to in a minute. Um. But then
it hits America and there's a guy um from Madras,
an Indian man named Senna Sama. And on November seventeen,
(07:46):
which will henceforth in the s Y s K Pantheon
of dates be referred to as sword Swallowing Day, Yeah uh,
in New York City at St. John's Hall, for one dollar,
adults could see the first person to ever swallow us
order in the United States and for a dollars a
lot of money back then, I agreed, but this is
a big deal, and you would think it would have
(08:07):
taken off right then, but no, it wasn't until eighteen
nine at the Chicago World's Fair that it became very
popular in the US. Yeah, I wonder what else was
big that year that wasn't the ice cream here wasn't now, No,
that was St. Louis in nineteen o three. Okay, so
pretty ice cream of course, Swords wallow Horse. You know,
if ice cream had been around, people be back. I'd
(08:28):
rather to see ice cream, right. This was the year
that electricity was a big one. Yeah, that was the
one that The Devil in the White City is said. Okay,
it's pretty good, but you can wait for the movie. Now,
that was it coming out. Apparently Leo DiCaprio is playing
the bad guy. Of course he is. I don't know
why I said that he rarely plays bad guys. Yeah
(08:52):
that's true. Yeah, although he wasn't that good of a
guy in Shutter Island. Uh, well, we don't want to
ruin that. It doesn't at her okay. Uh. It died
out again in the nineteen fifties because of you know,
it's on the carnival circuit and I guess all these
new fangled rides sort of took away from the whole
(09:12):
side show aspect. And then I love how this points
out that the you know, The Internet and video games
also helped kill swords swallowing, Like, really, yeah, I didn't
know that one had anything to do with the other.
It did. The Internet and video games pretty much killed
everything but the Internet and video games and TV. Yeah,
but now you can research and watch sort swallowing on
(09:33):
the internet. Now that is gorgeous thinking. I'm very impressive
that one. Alright, So that's pretty much the history of
swords swallowing. There's I guess towards the beginning of the
twentieth century when it became very popular in the US.
There is also a lot of controversy over whether it
(09:56):
was a trick or an illusion, and Harry Houdini himself
said it's a trick. There's a trick to it, and
he wrote in um, his very famous book The Miracle Mongers,
and expose right um that people who swallow swords first
backstage swallow a metal sheath that they slide the sword into.
(10:19):
All Right, I gotta stop you here. How it's you're
still swallowing the thing that's just as long and it's
made of metal, and you're pretending like it's not in there.
You're walking around talking a lot. I don't know it
seems easier just to learn to swallow this. I mean,
it's not like and we'll cover this. Actually, might as
well go ahead and say it. The swords that they
swallow aren't sharp edged. No, they are still pointyes, but
(10:41):
it's not like they're swallowing razor blades. I get the
impression that they're pointy ish. Well, yeah, a dull point
I would say, yes, But I mean that can't be
much worse than the sheath. So I think the sheath
is Maybe Houdini was being funny and Tracy Wilson missed that. Maybe.
So she goes on to point out that the Encyclopedia
(11:01):
Britannica says that it's a magic trick as well, and
that it's not a that it is some sort of
illusion or hoax or fraud. But really, apparently the the
basis of um sword swallowing is quite real. Like the
person is swallowing a sword, right, So let's how how
(11:26):
do you do that? Well, Josh, if you're gonna talk
about swallowing a sword, then we need to talk about swallowing.
And if you're gonna talk about swallowing, you got to
talk about the g I tract. Yes, not the g
I bill, the g I gastro intestinal tract. It's got
a couple of types of muscle. It's got a skeletal
muscle tissue and smooth muscle tissue, little lubrication layer called mucosa.
(11:51):
And then skeletal muscle is involunteery, I'm sorry, voluntary, And
if you're talking about your upper g I, you're talking
about your mouth, you're farring in your upper esophagus. The
smooth muscle is involuntary, and they work in concert to
help you swallow junk. Right, So the top stuff is
all voluntary, Like you can move your tongue, you can,
(12:14):
you can. Yeah, you start off doing it on purpose
when you chew and swallow, right, But then it gets
to a certain point past the what is it, the
upper esophageal um sphincter. Yeah, that just cracts me out.
Once it gets past that, which is kind of high
up towards the top of the esophagus. Yes, then it's
like you said, it becomes all involuntary. It's automatic, which
(12:35):
makes it very difficult to control anything that happens after that. Yeah, specifically,
the you know, your epic epiglotis goes into action because
that keeps stuff from going down into your lungs, which
you don't want. Bullus is food is chewed food and saliva.
That's the best word ever in bullus b O, l u,
s and um. Once you've done all the voluntary action,
(12:57):
it does a pretty cool thing. It gets down to
the part of your esophagus as the smooth muscle, the
involuntary muscle and paristalsis takes over and that's basically you're
It just squeezes it down like an inch at a time. Yeah,
you know how your esophagus is ringed, Yeah, right, Um,
(13:18):
those rings are little bands of muscle, and then they
squeeze just above the bullus and just shut it down there.
Finally it gets to the lower esophageals fixter and that opens.
You have to laugh every time that that opens, and
the bullus drops into the stomach to be digested and
(13:39):
then eventually pooped out. So that's what happens. That's that's
life that we just described life. The trick here, not trick,
but on the way down it passes by things like
your trachea, your heart, your a order which I thought
was part of the heart. Well it's a it's the artery,
(14:03):
the main artery that connects to the heart, and I
saw the vena cava was also separate. That's the main vein. Yeah,
And the diaphragm is the the muscle that moves up
and down which allows us to breathe. And and we
say all this because the sword is passing right through there. Yeah,
(14:25):
I mean it takes the same path as your food does. Yeah,
pretty much, yeah, pretty much exactly. We have our ribs
because we've got so many vital organs right there, they
need extra protecting um. And so we circumvent the ribs
when we swallow swords and just go directly past all
that stuff, all that soft tissue, right. Yeah. But there's
a difference, a big difference here. Swallowing food requires a
(14:49):
lot of contraction of muscles, and which you want to
do when you swallow a sword, is you want to
relax all those muscles, even the involuntary ones, which is
we'll get in into how to do that in a
minute here. But it's sort of the opposite of even
though it follows the same path, the muscles are doing
things they shouldn't do, aren't trained to do, at least, well,
(15:11):
that's kind of the point of sworce swallowing. Like if
you one of the reasons we warned you against sword
swallowing is because you can't just swallow a sword the
first time you try it. No, you you could, but
you would kill yourself. Um. Sword swallowing actually takes a
lot of practice, and a lot of horrible, horrible practice too. Um.
(15:32):
You have to train. You have to train your involuntary
muscle to work voluntarily, right, Yeah, or to not volunteer
at all. That's a great point by by um relaxing.
So the voluntary stuff, and let's talk about this. This
is I guess now we've reached sword swallowing one on one.
(15:55):
The first part is easy because it's all voluntary muscle.
You move your tongue out of the Yeah, you open
your throat. Um, you tell your head back. You always
see a sword swallower tilts his head back. It's intuitive.
But at the same time, the reason why is because
they're lining up the pharynx, the throat with the esophagus
so that it's a straight shot as straight as possible
(16:16):
from the from the mouth all the way down right.
That's right, um. And then after that, chuck, well, you
slip the sword down in there, and it passes through
the mouth and pharynx and upper esophagal sphincter into the
esophagus itself. And the esophagus has got a little curve
(16:37):
to it, so the sword is actually gonna straighten it out.
And Tracy even points out that sometimes it's nudging organs
out of the way as well on the way down.
That's why you usually swallow a swords slowly and and
the lube sword as well. Yeah uh. And then um
loose either by saliva or artificially, right, some people use
um uh petroleum jelly or vegetable or something, whatever your
(16:59):
flavor is. So that's how it's done. Pretty cool, that's right.
That's pretty much all there is too. It's but again
it takes some tremendous practice. Um. And also depending on
the type of the story of the length of the sword.
You said it was blunted, it's not sharp, still kind
of pointy, but it's as dull as possible. Um. But
(17:24):
the length of the sword is also very important as well. Um.
Usually from your teeth to the cardia, which is uh
where basically where the stomach connects to the esophagus, where
your lower esophageal sphincter is. Um, it's about forty centimes
in the average person. Yeah, okay, so right, so if
(17:47):
you swallow a sword that's longer than forty centimeters, um,
you are going to it's gonna have to go into
your stomach. That's that's a big deal. Yeah. And what
I've gotten is most sword allowers don't do that. Um,
it's not by accident that the Sword Swallowers Swallowers Association
International UH defines that length at thirty eight centimeters. That
(18:13):
you know, to qualify. So if it's forty centimeters, they said,
let's make it get a couple of centimeters short, right,
But this is just the typical person. It could be
much shorter. That's just to qualify. I don't know, I
thought it had to be that long. No, No, I'm
saying you're the distance cardia could be shorter. So even
with that shorter sword, you still may be in your stomach.
(18:33):
But yes, if you just if you get it all
the way down to a couple of centimeters above your cardia,
the s s AI, it still considers you a sword swallower,
which I think is nice. That is nice, but chuck, Um,
if you if you are taking a sword all the
way down to your cardia into your stomach, the sword
is literally in your stomach. That's crazy. Not only have
(18:55):
you relaxed, like all the voluntary muscles in your mouth,
you've relaxed all of voluntary muscles on your on your
larynx and in your esophagus right, all the involuntary muscles.
But you've also managed to figure out how to relax
both of your esophageal sphincters, the top one and the
one above your stomach, so that you can pass a
(19:16):
sword through without damaging it. And is nuts. And they
do recommend, by the way, um, nothing over twenty four
sixty one because at that point you were well into
your stomach. Yeah, that's the s s ai again. Yeah,
And I guess anything over that you might go hit
the bottom of the stomach, but you don't want to do. Also,
(19:39):
I want to point out that there is also a
long tradition of sword swallowers who juggle, and often do
this on horseback while juggling dude, unicycles, cartwheels, They do
all sorts of crazy things. So really, to me, just
standing stock still and swallowing a sword, that's impressive. Have
you ever seen drop? There's this. I don't know if
(20:02):
it's a new move, but it's a move where you
put it down like halfway and then you move your
hands and you let it drop by itself and you
actually tighten your catch it with your esophageal muscles. That
is control, pretty good control. Yeah, yeah, And they always
take it out really quick to if you notice, because
(20:24):
you're we'll talk about the gag reflex, but you're suspending
that and you can only do that for so long.
That's why they you know, you see him do it
and then it's like tada, and they yank it back
out really quickly because they want to live. That's right. Yeah. Um, well,
speaking of the gag reflex, that's one of the things
that has to be overcome and training, you know. Let's
(20:45):
let's get into the reflexing. Okay, Well, reflexes exist outside
of the brain. They're actually regulated by the brain stem.
I didn't know that. Actually, Well, that's how how somebody
can still be considered alive even though their higher faculties
are gone, because they still have reflexes. It makes sense.
I just never really out about it that way. But well,
may I describe how it reflects works. So basically, you
have a receptor nerve ending that detects, in this case,
(21:09):
in your throat detects some sort of object or intrusion
that shouldn't be there. Basically, the only stuff that should
be there is fluid and chewed food as far as
your receptors are concerned. But yes, if a sword or
any other metal object um makes its way into your throat,
the receptors are going to figure this out and they're
gonna send an electrical impulse to your central nervous system
(21:31):
in the brain stem. The in the integration center is
what it's called. Yeah, that's kind of like it's kind
of sounded to me like a call center. Like literally,
I mean, it happens so quick, but it's like, what's
the nature of your emergency, sir? Exactly, Like I've got
a sword in my throat, but this is the brain stem.
So it's all done on like um punch cards like
they used to play Tic tac toe in the hanging chads. Um.
(21:55):
So your your brain stem says, Okay, well there shouldn't
be a metal object there. Just go ahead and direct
the muscles of the throat to gag and that produces
what's called a wretch, and that's meant to expel the
foreign object. What swords followers do is mute or dull
this reflex so that it doesn't happen at all, and
(22:17):
they do it by setting it off time after time
after time, unbelievable. They make themselves gag as much as
they can until it doesn't work, which is dangerous. It's
very dangerous. And if you didn't get the idea before
from the initial c O, a sword swallowing is a
very very dangerous pastime, profession, whatever you're using it for,
(22:42):
I would imagine there at a higher risk for choking. Choking, Um, yeah,
because the point of the gag reflexes to get that
stuff out. That piece of steak comes flying out when
you wretch it up. Uh. And ideally, if you don't
have a gag reflex, then yeah, that's bad news because
that steak just stays in there and die. You know.
I had a friend um who when I was in
(23:03):
elementary school, his mom got an emergency tracking out of
me with a steak knife. Oh yeah, Dad, you always
hear about the stories she had the little scar and
everything cheese. Someone in a restaurant door. Oh wow, yeah,
I mean a steak knife, no anesthesia, know nothing, steak
knife and then a straw or pent cheese. I've never
(23:24):
seen anything good like that happen. I didn't see it happen. Yeah,
but I mean I've never I'm just saying I've never
seen any like awesome life saving situation. I want to
be a part of one one day, just not on
the side. Uh so what what other dangers? They actually
did a study um of and they want to ignoble
(23:45):
prize for the study. I found out in two thousand
seven and they studied a hundred and ten um English
speaking sword swallowers and basically just ask him a bunch
of questions about their health. And they called it sword
throat when they get a sore throat. Yeah, I thought
that was kind of clever. Clever. So throat pain, um
(24:07):
lower chest pain, persistent lower chest pain, internal bleeding occasionally.
I saw this one lady who was coughing up blood
and they found out that she had like nicked part
of her esophagus way down, which imagine it's common um
esophical perforations like we just talked about. Uh, how do
you say that pleurisy, inflammation of the lungs, and paracarditis,
(24:32):
which is inflammation of the sack that protects the heart.
And that's in descending order of how often those things happened.
So everyone gets the sword throat, it seems like, but
probably very few actually got inflammation of the the paricardium, right.
They also figured out that, um, there was a trend
among sword swallowers where if they had a particularly rough performance, um,
(24:58):
the inflammation that would result resulted in further injury. So
like they would be okay during the performance, but you know,
they had a little trouble getting it down, but then
a day later or something they broke their esophagus or
something like that. And then also apparently sinus infections are
common because you're you're passing the sword with petroleum jelly
(25:21):
and whatever hair and gun get picked up in between
the time you put the petroleum jelly on and the
time you swallowed it right past the sinuses, which can
be sensitive. I can attest, and I imagine the circus
side show isn't the cleanest area on the planet, you,
I think, imagine correctly, you know what I'm saying. Um,
there's also death is a side effect of sword swallowing
(25:44):
from time to time. Um. Another British medical journal study
cited the death of a man who um swallowed an
umbrella or tried to and died. My first question was,
did he accidentally try and open it? You hit the button.
It's like Tom and Jerry totally. His body flares out
like an umbrella. It's like Tom and Jerry, except real life.
(26:06):
And said, that's right. Um. World sword Swallowers Day, two
thousand ten. What it sounds like is that they gathered
sword swallowers at Ripley's believe it or not, all over
the country to do this all at once to perform
um and Red Stewart, your buddy Red. He swallowed a
(26:27):
world record fifty two swords at a time. Oh man,
I don't know if that's official or unofficial Guinness certified.
But George the Giant swallowed a thirty seven inch sword
at the Hollywood believe it or not. Jeez, So that's
they recommend twenty four inches max. Because you're in the
stomach thirty seven inches. That's longer than three ft. That's crazy. Uh.
(26:50):
Dan Meyer swallowed a giant straight razor and hedge clippers
in Dallas at the belief that they're not there. Travis
Festler swallowed a sword with cockroaches crawling around it, um,
crawling on the sword. And guess where this one happened Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Um.
(27:10):
What else a hundred and twenty degree curve sword at
the Ripley's Believe It or Not in Ocean City, Maryland,
and I'm just amazed over, you know. And finally, Mike
Harrison at the Orlando Believe it or Not, swallowed a
sword that was driven down his throat by the discharge
of a gun. I don't know how that happened, but
wait what happened? Apparently it was shot into his mouth
(27:33):
from a gun. I don't know. I'd like to see
that one. Yeah, that's kind at the at the Internet,
which is first killed and then now supports sword swallowing.
And also Red Stewart, who you mentioned, who swallowed fifty
two swords at once. I guess his former record was
twenty five. Um. But before that, this impresses me the most.
(27:57):
He in V seven he swallowed a our axel. Well
they do. Tracy pointed out people swallowed dipsticks and other
straight metal things. Yeah, that's pretty amazing. Stuff. Yeah, that's
got to be pretty big around too. Yeah, and people
have swallowed snakes. I found this guy, Oh that sucks
(28:19):
for the snake. Yeah, I think the snake lives. Yeah,
but still he's like, well, sure, what are you doing? Well,
the snake is probably like I'm getting eaten by another snake,
you know. Yeah, okay, so it's just desserts then. But
this dude in the eighteen forties sal Uh salam intro
the snake swallower. He uh have a couple of good
quotes from him. They fancy that it hurts you, but
(28:41):
it don't, or what a fool I should be to
do it. I don't mean to say it don't hurt
you at first, because it do. For my swallow was
very bad and I couldn't eat anything but liquids for
two months whilst I was learning. I cured my swallow
whilst I was stretching it with lemon and sugar. And
then he learned this that was sore, doesn't He learned
to swallow a snake and said, the snakes are about
(29:04):
eighteen inches long, and you must first cut the stingers
out because it might hurt you. When I first began
swallowing snakes. They tasted queer, like they draw the roof
of your mouth a bit. It's a roughish taste. Apparently,
the scales like it's easier going down than it is
coming back up. I could see that, the way the
scales are laying, I could totally see that. So we
(29:26):
don't recommend swallowing snakes either, and I don't know if
anyone still does that. That might be a nineteenth century
swallowing steaks. Snakes swallow steaks a lot. Yeah, it's not tough. Um, Well,
I guess that's it. You've got anything else, Well, if
you want to see some pretty cool images about um,
(29:47):
sword swallowing with a strange like kind of um superhero
worship ee um man, he was buff too. Yeah, there's
a there's a period around how S works where like
comic book geeks like kind of ruled the place, right,
and so this is acceptable in some way. Yeah, it's
definitely look different than our other illustrations. Right, So if
(30:09):
you want to, um, if you want to see those
weird illustrations and learn as much as you possibly can
about sword swallowing, uh and the circus arts in general,
we have a whole circus arts section. Did you know
that I just let you say circus arts. Um, it's uh.
Any of that stuff can be typed into the search
bar how stuff works dot com and that means, now, Chuck,
(30:31):
it's time for listen to mail. I'm gonna call this
blood type follow up. Guys are just googled good podcast
and found your name, and I think you're serious. Although
I google good podcast and I didn't see anything. What
comes up? Uh? There was one article about how to
(30:52):
do a good podcast and it was like, enunciate very clearly,
stick to the point, and keep it short. We're away
of breaking rules. Uh. So I just enjoyed your latest
podcasts and have a contribution on the subject of blood type.
To put it simply, the transfusion rate is sixty to
ninety million eaters per hour for the first fifteen minutes,
(31:13):
although each hospital has its own policy in an exact rate,
but it UH on average it is sixty to ninety
After about fifteen minutes, the rate can be advanced to
one hundred to one hundred and twenty million eaters per hour.
The rationale is that if an acute hemolytic reaction is
going to occur at will happened in the first fifteen
(31:34):
minutes of a transfusion, and the slow rate keeps the
infused volume low. So, using a little advanced math to
answer your question, it takes as little as sixteen to
twenty two point five million leads of incompatible blood to
cause a reaction. Of course, these are rough estimates, that
they do give you a hint of how a little
bad blood can cause a big problem. Thanks for doing
(31:55):
the show. I look forward to going back and listening
to old shows as well as the current new ones.
I hope I didn't just make myself look like an idiot.
Far from it, Dan, you sounded pretty dang smart, I
would say so. Um. Yeah. Also, it's really weird to
U two get feedback that quickly, like we recorded that
(32:16):
two days ago and bam, we've got an answer. I
really enjoyed that. We I kind of wish we could
do this alive, but that wouldn't work. We've tried that before.
It never does work. Um, well, I guess it's it.
Do you have anything Do you want to call for anything? Uh? Okay, um,
(32:37):
if you have any kind of circus arts background or
your family, does we want to hear about it? Because
we find that kind of stuff fascinating. Um. Also, by
the way, the black guy in Dason confused his named
Melvin Spivey. Really it was way off, so sorry about that. UM.
You can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast.
(33:00):
You can send us stuff on Facebook at facebook dot
com slash stuff you Should Know, and you can also
send us an old fashioned email to stuff podcast at
how Stuff works dot com. Be sure to check out
our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how
(33:20):
Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising and
perplexing possibilities of tomorrow, brought to you by the reinvented
two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
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Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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