WTF Fun Fact 12550 – Magical Gladiator Blood

by

It’s not hard to find references to the drinking of gladiator blood in ancient sources. However, it was most often used to treat what ancient medical writers called “The Sacred Disease,” which we now believe is epilepsy. Some thought it was brought on by the gods, while others argued for a more natural cause.

Of course, there’s no truth to the claim, but epilepsy held an important place in ancient medicine because it stumped doctors for centuries. It could come on suddenly, making it even more mysterious.

And when diseases are misunderstood, their potential cures are likely to get pretty interesting.

In their 2003 article, “Between horror and hope: gladiator’s blood as a cure for epileptics in ancient medicine,” scholars Ferdinand Peter Moog and Axel Karenberg state that not only was gladiator blood a potential cure for this disease but a gladiator’s liver would be consumed as well. AND that the tradition may have continued in some places up into recent times!

“Between the first and the sixth century a single theological and several medical authors reported on the consumption of gladiator’s blood or liver to cure epileptics…
…the magical use of gladiators’ blood continued for centuries. After the prohibition of gladiatorial combat in about 400 AD, an executed individual (particularly had he been beheaded) became the “legitimate” successor to the gladiator.
Occasional indications in early modern textbooks on medicine as well as reports in the popular literature of the 19th and early 20th century document the existence of this ancient magical practice until modern times. Spontaneous recovery of some forms of epilepsy may be responsible for the illusion of therapeutic effectiveness and for the confirming statements by physicians who have commented on this cure.”

As the authors state, the condition we now know as epilepsy got better on its own in some people. But if they had the “gladiator treatment” and did get better, it simply strengthened doctors’ resolve to keep using it.

But why gladiator blood? According to Dr. Lydia Kang, MD, author of the book, Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything:

“They stemmed from this magical idea that young, healthy males had energy. If you could harness that energy right at the point of death, you could ingest some of this healthfulness. In other words: you are what you eat.” –  WTF fun fact

Source: “Gladiator Blood and Liquid Gold: Good for What Ails You?” — MedPage Today

WTF Fun Fact 12549 – The Shugborough Inscription

by

Sometime between 1748 and 1756, Thomas Anson, a member of the British Parliament, commissioned a monument for his family’s estate, Shugborough Hall in Staffordshire, England.

The stone arch features a relief by the Flemish sculptor Peter Scheemakers duplicating a 1638 painting by Nicolas Poussin called The Shepherds of Arcadia. But unlike the painting, the relief includes an extra sarcophagus with the words “I am also in Arcadia.”

But what really gets people riled up about the arch is an inscription on it that no one has explained. Of course, it can simply be something personal to the family, but pseudohistorians and conspiracy theorists have deemed it something bigger – a mysterious ciphertext.

The inscription is a series of letters – O U O S V A V V – between the offset letters D and M.

According to the most likely theory, handed down by Keith Massey, a linguist who teaches Arabic and Latin and was hired by the NSA to crack the code, it’s not a secret message worthy of worldwide attention.

For example, the letters D M can be found on Roman tombs and stand for Dis Manibus, which translates to “dedicated to the shades.”

With this clue in place, Massey postulated that the rest of the letters stood for “Oro Ut Omnes Sequantur Viam Ad Veram Vitam,” or “I pray that all may follow the Way to True Life.”

Frankly, that seems like a good enough explanation for a random monument in someone’s backyard. But the fact that people (including the likes of Charles Darwin) had been trying to decipher it for many years indicated to some that it has a much deeper meaning. Of course, there’s no way of knowing if that’s true, and it seems unlikely.

But conspiracy theorists won’t be denied their conspiracies. They’ve been egged on by the book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, which hypothesized that a secret society called the Priory of Sion is helping to keep the secret that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had children. The authors acknowledge the book is fiction, but their passing reference to Poussin being a member of this group and his painting The Shepherds of Arcadia holding some clue to the location of the Holy Grail (which, in this case, is not a vessel but Mary Magdalene herself) has been enough to keep the conspiracy alive.

A spokesman for Shugborough House says they get numerous messages each week of someone claiming to have solved the “mystery,” and they’ve largely started ignoring them. After all, they could simply be initials or stand for something that would only be meaningful to the family that once lived there. But they are also partly to blame for the continued interest since a promotional campaign they launched to get more tourists made repeated references to the storyline in The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. –  WTF fun fact

Source: “200-year-old mystery of Shugborough Code ‘solved,’” The Birmingham Post

WTF Fun Fact 12548 – The Biltmore McDonald’s

by

The Vanderbilt family became the wealthiest people in America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But by the third generation, they were doing more spending than saving (or working), and their fortunes soon vanished. One of their weaknesses came in the form of building wildly expensive real estate, including the Biltmore Estate.

The Biltmore is a French Renaissance-style chateau and the largest private home in America. George Vanderbilt commissioned it after he visited Asheville, North Carolina in 1888 and fell in love with the Blue Ridge Mountains. Construction began in 1889 and hosted Vanderbilt’s first guests on Christmas Eve, 1895.

Biltmore spans a stunning 175,000 square feet and was designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt. It has The 250-rooms, including 35 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, and 65 fireplaces. Across the way, you’ll find 75 acres of gardens designed by the famous landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.

And just down the street, you can get a Big Mac.

That’s right. The Biltmore is now a bit of a tourist trap, and what was once a village housing the staff is now basically a strip mall for anyone who is less-than-impressed by the glamorous home itself (or, you know, can’t go a day without fast food).

When McDonald’s bought the space, the Biltmore Village Historic Resources Commission was less than pleased to see something so unglamorous taint the home and its surroundings. But what can you do?

Well, for starters, you can pretty much force McDonald’s to renovate their McBuildings into something more fitting of the atmosphere. After it was built in 2000, it was almost immediately renovated to become…a fancy McDonald’s.

According to Atlas Obscura,

“The Biltmore McDonald’s octagonal dining room features tables of red oak, wrought iron railings, and luminous chandeliers under a sweeping pressed-tin ceiling, with every wood feature boasting a handsome finish. A baby grand player piano sits in the corner, churning out disembodied tunes you might hear at a fanciful gala, while a gold-leaf mantled fireplace forms the base of a giant stone chimney. And while the food is sourced and prepared as it would be at any McDonald’s, the staff who makes it maintain a strict dress code of slacks and a bow-tie. It’s fast-food meets forced-fanciful.”

So if you like to slurp your milkshake in style, now you know where to go. –  WTF fun fact

Source: “Biltmore McDonald’s” — Atlas Obscura

WTF Fun Fact 12547 – Caligula’s Equine Obsession

by

There’s not a lot of love in the history books for the madman/Roman emperor Caligula. Much of what we know about him comes from ancient historians Suetonius and Cassius Dio, who weren’t big fans.

If you look up Caligula’s horse Incitatus (and he does have his own Wikipedia page!), you’ll see stories about how the emperor decided he had so little respect for the Roman Senate that he installed the horse as a senator and even made him consul. (A Roman consul is a senator elected to the executive office for a 1-year term.)

And while that may have been one of Caligula’s half-baked plans, he was assassinated before it became a reality.

Not everyone believes this was a real plan, however. Some historians think it was simply the result of a one-off remark the emperor made about his senators being “asses.” But one thing is likely, and that’s Caligula’s love for his horse. It’s possible that he even held parties in Incitatus’ grand stable where the horse served as “host.”

Interestingly, Caligula’s horse comes up in the “Rights of Great Britain Asserted against the Claims of America,” the British response to the American Declaration of Independence. Believing the ancient historians’ accounts that the horse did become consul, the author uses it as an example of what happens when a state goes rogue:

The extension of the right of electing Magistrates to the people at large, was the principal cause of the fall of freedom in Old Rome. The prejudices and fears of the rabble were the steps by which ambitious men ascended to a power, which they converted into tyranny over their foolish Constituents…the grandsons of voters who placed Marius, Cinna, and Caesar at the head of the State, were employed by Caligula in raising his horse to the Consulship.

True or not, the story of Caligula’s horse serves as a pretty striking talking point, especially for anyone who wants to call a politician an “ass.”

–  WTF fun fact

Source: “Mythbusting Ancient Rome – Caligula’s Horse” — The Conversation

WTF Fun Fact 12456 – Napoleon’s Bunny Battle

by

There are so many stories about Napoleon out there that it’s hard to tell which ones are true at this point. They’re like Einstein quotes – half of them are just made up!

But this was has a few different sources, and it’s too funny not to share since it is, technically, part of the historical record of the famous French emperor.

As the most trustworthy version of the story goes, in July 1807, France and Russia ended the war between their empires by signing the Treaties of Tilsit. That’s enough to put anyone in a celebratory mood, especially since it drew the countries into an alliance at the time that would render the rest of Europe largely at their mercy.

Looking for a way to keep the good times rolling for a few more days, Napolean invited the military higher-ups still present to a rabbit hunt (which is the kind of thing rulers did for fun back in those days). Napolean’s only mistake was entrusting the collection of the rabbits to his chief of staff, Alexandre Berthier.

No one knows quite how many rabbits Berthier collected (hundreds or up to 3000, by some accounts), but it was a lot. And if you know anything about rabbits, they’re a bit hard to catch in such enormous numbers in a short period of time. So Berthier’s men brought in cages and cages full of domesticated rabbits.

Now, this is already a mistake because domesticated rabbits will not take off running – when they see humans, they assume they are being fed. But when the boss tells you to bring him a bunch of rabbits, you have to find some way to make him happy, even if that means rounding up bunnies from local farmers.

The afternoon unfolded in much the way you might assume. As the cages were opened, the rabbits didn’t scurry away. In fact, they scurried towards Napoleon. Who knows, maybe he had a lot of lettuce in his teeth after lunch. Or, more likely, they hadn’t been fed in a while.

Whatever attracted the rabbits to the emperor must have been something special because hundreds of bunnies were said to have swarmed him relentlessly. I mean, you have to laugh, right?

Napoleon did laugh at first, or at least he took it in stride, probably thinking that a few shots fired in the air would set things straight. But that didn’t work either, and it is reported that more and more bunnies thought “swarm the emperor” was a fun new game they were all playing.

Things got trickier as the mass of bunnies started climbing his legs and up his jacket. The guy was genuinely at a loss, especially when trying to shoo them away with his riding crop didn’t work. His coachman cracked his whip, hoping the noise would scare them away, but no luck.

So what’s a man to do when nature shows him who’s boss? In this case, hop in the carriage and try to get the heck out of there.

Lucas Reilly, writing for the website Mental Floss, found a great quote from historian David Chandler, who described the next stage of the bunny attack:

“…with a finer understanding of Napoleonic strategy than most of his generals, the rabbit horde divided into two wings and poured around the flanks of the party and headed for the imperial coach.”

In the end, Napoleon retreated, fleeing to his carriage. It was no defeat at Waterloo, but it was probably just as unexpected. –WTF fun fact

Source: “The Time Napoleon Was Attacked by Rabbits” — Mental Floss

WTF Fun Fact 12455 – Meditation Relieves Pain

by

Pain is a sensitive topic (no pun intended). It’s subjective, for starters, so some people genuinely feel pain more (and pain affects them more) than others. When you’re in pain, it’s hard to conceive of something like meditation as a potential remedy. And to be fair, if you’ve never done it before, trying it for the first time minutes after you break your leg isn’t going to help.

Meditation has also become controversial since some people associate it with religion. But it doesn’t have to be Buddhist – most meditation is completely secular or customized to include elements of the practitioner’s own faith.

And here’s why it matters: we have an epidemic of painkiller use going on worldwide that has killed millions. Pharmaceutical companies are getting the blame, but that doesn’t do much good to people already experiencing addiction to opiates, for example. And recommending meditation to those people won’t replace receiving professional help at this point.

However, knowing that meditation can be a powerful tool can help set up those of us who have yet to experience serious acute or chronic pain for more success in managing it in the future. That doesn’t mean painkillers will become a thing of the past, but having a set of tools designed to draw on your own inner strength couldn’t hurt, right? (Again, no pun intended.)

So, as we pointed out in the photo, research from Wake Forest University and published in the Journal of Neuroscience found that meditation decreased the intensity of a subject’s pain by 40%. Pain also affects us in other ways that tend to make it worse by setting off a stress chain reaction in our bodies. Those overall feelings of unpleasantness were reduced by 57% in the group of meditators. Scans of their brains confirmed this, so researchers didn’t just take their word for it.

Even morphine didn’t have that kind of success in pain reduction.

But there are a few things worth keeping in mind:
– These were experienced meditators who had been trained to do it correctly (the technique used was called “focused attention”)
– While every subject experienced some pain reduction, it varied, with some only reporting an 11% reduction
– They did not later give these same people morphine; the researchers relied on known data about the pain reduction morphine provides
– While the study has been replicated, it was small, so more research needs to be done before we assume everyone can meditate their way through the pain

Despite these caveats, it’s pretty amazing to think about the power we have over our own bodies. –  WTF fun facts

Source: “Meditation instead of morphine — not so fast” — LA Times

WTF Fun Fact 12454 – Insomnia is Universal

by

Sometimes pets and bugs are the reason WE can’t sleep, but did you know animals and other critters can suffer from insomnia as well?

Our knowledge on the topic started when National Geographic replied to a Facebook question from a fan: Do Bugs Sleep?

“Yes—with an asterisk,” replied biologist Barrett Klein from the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse. He studies sleep in honeybees.

He continued:

“Paper wasps, cockroaches, praying mantises, and fruit flies are among insects that doze. Fruit fly sleep is even similar to mammal sleep, since the flies respond to sleep-inducing chemicals and caffeine, just like people.

Still, measuring sleep in insects is tricky—it’s not always easy, for instance, to differentiate between sleep and sleep-like states.”

According to Klein: Signs of true bug sleep are not moving, “drooping in the direction of gravity,” and more relaxed muscles.

Bugs are in charge of putting themselves to bed, but sometimes they experience a state of arousal (awakeness, not the sexy kind) that prevents them from getting quality sleep, it seems. And we can relate!

“Experiments in fruit flies also show that they experience ‘sleep rebound.’ That means that a fruit fly deprived of sleep will subsequently need it more—something most of us busy people can understand,” Klein told National Geographic.

As for honeybees, Klein’s specialty, when they get sleepy they get sloppy with their work.

Now, when it comes to more pet-like animals (and we know plenty of people keep bees!), the issue is pretty much the same as it is in older humans. Cats and dogs can have trouble regulating sleep as they age or when they have medical issues. The result can be lethargy during the day.

Since cats sleep so much – and hardly ever at night – it can be a bit hard to tell when they change their schedule. But as their hearing and sight grow weaker with age, they wake up at different times feeling more confused and even yowling to express it.  – WTF fun facts

Source: “Do Bugs Sleep? Why They’re Surprisingly Similar to People” — National Geographic

WTF Fun Fact 12453 – Spontaneously Combusting Pistachios

by

Pistachios are delicious and nutritious but also a little bit dangerous at times.

Who knew?

So, first of all, pistachios are pretty hard to grow, which helps explain why they’re so expensive. The trees on which they grow are very temperamental, requiring long, hot, dry summers and no ground freezes. A pistachio tree also won’t produce the goods if it doesn’t have about 1000 total hours of dormancy at a temperature of about 45 degrees. Oh, and they hate humidity. So if you have a friend or officemate who can never get the temperature right, you kind of know what we mean here.

Pistachios were a Middle Eastern delicacy that once traveled along trade routes as Islam spread around Europe. (Fun fact: trade goods like spices and cloth weren’t the only things that traveled along trade routes – ideas and religion did too!)

After they made their way across the alps, they were known as the “Latin Penny Nut” and used for all sorts of Italian cooking. Then, after WWII, they became a snack food.

In the U.S., pistachios are domestically grown, and 99% come from California, representing a $1.6 billion boon to the economy. The rest are grown in Arizona and New Mexico.

Ok, but here’s the thing about pistachios – they need to be stored very carefully. Otherwise, they develop mold-related aflatoxins, which are toxic, carcinogenic, and deadly. And they can also explode.

You’re probably here to read about the exploding part, so let us set you at ease – this generally happens during shipping, so you don’t have to worry about losing an eye while having a healthy snack. You might have to worry, however, if you’re towing around a big heap of these things.

When pistachios are loaded up and transported, they need the right temperature and pressure at all times. Pistachios have a low water and high fat content. But when they’re kept in humid conditions, the water content can expand and can start a reaction in which fat-cleaving enzymes produce free fatty acids. You don’t need to understand the details of that, but what’s important is that those fatty acids get broken down when the nut takes in oxygen. The nut then spits out carbon dioxide, which creates heat. If you have a whole bunch of nuts stored, and they’re all giving out heat because it’s too humid, that heat will build up until…you guessed it – they all catch fire and explode.

So, yes, pistachios can spontaneously combust under the right circumstances. –WTF fun facts

Source: Do Pistachios Actually Combust? – Tasting Table

WTF Fun Fact 12452 – The 11 Fingers of Mel Brooks

by

Mel Brooks – what a gas! The comedian and director of Young Frankenstein decided to celebrate his memorialization at Hollywood’s Chinese Theatre by giving fans the finger. The 11th finger, that is.

It was back in 2014, but it’ll be with us (in cement, at least) forever.

It’s true; Mel Brooks had 11 fingers when he pressed his hands in the cement at the ceremony to celebrate the 40th anniversary of his film Young Frankenstein. But one was a prosthetic.

A mere 88 years young at the time, Brooks explained his shenanigans later that same day on Conan O’Brien’s Late Show:

“I wanted to do something just a little different, I didn’t know what,” he told O’Brien. “So I got another finger.”

At the time of the ceremony, he joked around with his son: “About time, huh,”Max Brooksreportedly said. “Comedians never get their fair share of recognition in Hollywood…”

At the time, Mel Brooks gave a heartfelt thanks to his fans, saying: “I want to thank you all for being here and being part of the wonderful charade. I really love it.”

The charade involved an extra finger, but it seems it was one of the polite ones.

Now age 95, we’re just happy Mel is around to keep us laughing. –WTF fun facts

Source: “Mel Brooks brings extra finger to Hollywood handprint ceremony” — CBS News