Transcript

Episode 717: October Bonus Episode - Corpse Medicine: Tomb to Table

From Morbid | Podcast · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 52 min · 10,472 words · 318 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Episode 717: October Bonus Episode - Corpse Medicine: Tomb to Table", an episode of Morbid | Podcast published October 13, 2025 (52 min, about 10,472 words). It mentions 24 people, works and ideas, including Corpse Medicine, Adolf Ash, Medical Cannibalism, Bumen, Mummy Powder.

What this episode is about

The content explores the quirky dynamics and personal experiences of two hosts, Ash and Elena, as they share insights from their week that included notable encounters with popular figures. They reflect on the excitement and nostalgia surrounding their experiences in a lively and humorous manner, while weaving in their signature style of banter and candid storytelling.

Key takeaways

  • Slapping and screaming: the secret pre-podcast ritual for transforming chaos into creativity.
  • Meeting celebrities is a thrill, but it's humility that makes the moments truly unforgettable.
  • A misspelling on a whiteboard: proof that even kids recognize the warm comforts of home.
  • Recognizing wins, big or small, keeps the enthusiasm alive—whether it’s a nomination or sharing laughs.
  • Bonus episodes mean more tangents, more laughs, and more moments that remind us why we love podcasting.

Who speaks in this episode?

  • Ash (Host) · 26 min speaking
  • Elena (Host) · 26 min speaking
  • Mikey (Guest) · 3 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Sirius, Michael Mloud (Mikey), Andy Cohen, Adolf Ash
  2. – 10:00: Golden Globe, Laguna Beach, Two Girls One Go
  3. – 15:00: Adolf Ash, Corpse Medicine, Medical Cannibalism, Bumen
  4. – 20:00: Corpse Medicine, Bumen, Richard Sugg, Marielle Carr
  5. – 25:00: Corpse Medicine, Jonathan Goddard, King Charles II, Oliver Cromwell
  6. – 30:00: King Charles II, Oliver Cromwell, Skull Moss, Vital Spirit
  7. – 35:00: Corpse Medicine, Mummy Powder, Skull Moss, Apothecaries
  8. – 40:00: Vital Spirit, Corpse Medicine, Apothecaries, Carl H. Danfeld
  9. – 45:00: Medical Cannibalism, King Charles II, Apothecaries, King Charles I
  10. – 50:00: Corpse Medicine, Ghost
  11. – 51:30: Tobias Forge

Notable quotes from "Episode 717: October Bonus Episode - Corpse Medicine: Tomb to Table"

  • So, that's when I stumbled across a Smithsonian article about something called corpse medicine and I said, Yeah, I want to hear about that.
    about Corpse Medicine · at
  • By this imbalming process that used all kinds of different resin and things like that, they thought that was naturally occurring bumen. And that it's never not funny to say…
    about Bumen · at
  • 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.
    about Jonathan Goddard · at
  • Holy [ __ ] Now, here's where we get to King's drops. 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.
    about King Charles II · at
  • Kind of illness and the person wasn't expecting to die necessarily. So that meant that their spirits still possessed some kind of desire to continue on. And therefore, if you…
    about Vital Spirit · at
  • Yada. Now, another desirable quality of the skulls found in Ireland was something called skull moss or osnia. A lot of times in Ireland, enemies killed on their land weren't…
    about Skull Moss · at
  • Sort of mummy dust. 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.
    about Mummy Powder · at
  • 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.
    about Apothecaries · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Adolf Ash — Person · Host / primary storyteller · 2 mentions · first at
    Ash co-hosts the episode and delivers the main researched segment on corpse medicine, including historical sources and examples.
    I'm very excited for this one. And Ash really, really did the damn thing here.
  • Jonathan Goddard — Person · Historical physician / inventor of remedy · 1 mention · first at
    Presented as the inventor of 'Goddard’s drops' (skull-based tincture) later rebranded as 'King’s Drops' by King Charles II.
  • King Charles II — Person · Historical figure used as key example · 3 mentions · first at
    He popularizes and rebrands Goddard’s skull-based tincture as 'King’s Drops' and is used to illustrate the era’s medical beliefs.
  • Oliver Cromwell — Person · Historical antagonist / contextual figure · 2 mentions · first at
    Discussed as Jonathan Goddard’s employer and as a driver of violence in Ireland, linked to sourcing skulls for corpse medicine.
    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.
  • Richard Sugg — Person · Referenced expert / author · 2 mentions · first at
    Cited as an author/historian providing quotes and historical framing for corpse medicine practices.
    Richard Sugg, who wrote, Mummies, cannibals, and vampires, the history of corpse medicine from the Renaissance to the Victorians.
  • King Charles I — Person · Historical example (execution/blood) · 1 mention · first at
    Referenced as executed monarch whose blood was reportedly collected by onlookers, illustrating beliefs about royal blood and healing.
    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.
  • Marielle Carr — Person · Referenced writer/source · 1 mention · first at
    Cited as a Science History Institute writer explaining how 'mumia' expanded from asphalt to embalmed flesh.
    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 resonous material from inbombed bodies, but the.
  • Michael Mloud (Mikey) — Person · Off-mic producer/companion referenced in banter · 3 mentions · first at
    Mikey is referenced as being present during recording and events; he films their TikTok dance and reacts to their jokes.
    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 and I didn't see that she was in there.
  • Tobias Forge — Person · Referenced musician (Ghost) · 2 mentions · first at
    Named in relation to the song 'Mummy Dust' and as a humorous 'foreshadowing' reference during the corpse medicine discussion.
    Well, I'm going to actually talk about mummy dust. Thank you for the foreshadowing, Tobias Forge.
  • Carl H. Danfeld — Person · Referenced author/source · 1 mention · first at
    Quoted regarding fraudulent mummy merchants and the indiscriminate sourcing of bodies sold as 'mumia'.
    That they believed would contain some of the best vital spirit you could buy, who got completely bamboozled. Carl H.
  • Andy Cohen — Person · Referenced celebrity met at event · 2 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as someone they met during the Sirius-related week; used to convey excitement and status of the event.
    I'm essentially co-workers with Andy Cohen now.
  • Kelly Ripa — Person · Referenced celebrity met at event · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned alongside Andy Cohen as a celebrity they met during the week’s events.
    You can go [ __ ] yourself because I met Andy Cohen, [ __ ] And Kelly Ripa, and they were both so sweet.

Companies & orgs

  • Sirius — Company · Business partner / event organizer referenced · 2 mentions · first at
    Ash and Elena discuss attending a Sirius advertising upfront event and meeting media personalities there.
    There's all these like presentations that we got to be a part of. We got to meet some other people who work at Sirius.

Concepts & topics

  • Corpse Medicine — Concept · Core topic · 11 mentions · first at
    The episode’s main subject: a historical European practice of using human remains (blood, skull, fat, mummies) as medicine.
  • Medical Cannibalism — Concept · Core topic (alternate term) · 2 mentions · first at
    Used interchangeably with corpse medicine to describe consuming human remains for supposed therapeutic benefit.
    And I said, Yeah, that sounds pretty [ __ ] 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. Wow. They were really.
  • Bumen — Concept · Core explanatory concept (translation mix-up drive · 2 mentions · first at
    Presented as the misunderstood substance (bitumen/asphalt) that led Europeans to misinterpret 'mumia' and associate mummies with medicinal asphalt.
  • Mummy Powder — Concept · Key example of corpse medicine · 2 mentions · first at
    Described as a widely sold panacea made from mummies, stocked by apothecaries and even used in art pigment ('mummy brown').
  • Vital Spirit — Concept · Explanatory concept · 5 mentions · first at
    Used to explain why violent deaths were believed to produce more 'life force' in remains, making them 'more potent' for remedies.
  • Skull Moss — Concept · Key example of corpse medicine ingredient · 3 mentions · first at
    Explained as moss growing on exposed skulls (Ireland) believed to absorb 'vital spirit' and used for nosebleeds and wounds.
  • Apothecaries — Concept · Distribution channel / setting · 5 mentions · first at
    Presented as shops that stocked and sold corpse-medicine products (tinctures, powders, body parts) to the public.

Places & events

  • Golden Globe — Event · Career milestone referenced in banter · 2 mentions · first at
    Ash and Elena discuss being on a shortlist/eligibility related to Golden Globes, reflecting their current professional momentum.
    Still dealing with the Golden Globes of it all.

Media & podcasts

  • Ghost — Media · Referenced band/music · 2 mentions · first at
    Referenced via the song 'Mummy Dust' and as a pop-culture tie-in to the episode’s mummy/corpse-medicine theme.
    And it was used for hundreds and hundreds of years and it became a great ghost song.
  • Two Girls One Go — Media · Show they guested on (referenced) · 1 mention · first at
    Ash and Elena mention attending and being guests on the Two Girls One Go show during their busy week.
    We were so we had just got home from New York and then we had to we or got to I should say got to go to the Two Girls One Go show which was so much fun.
  • Laguna Beach — Media · Referenced comfort-watch media · 2 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as the show they watched in the hotel while decompressing after the Sirius event day.
    No, no. We're going to stay in this hotel room. We're going to watch some old episodes of Laguna Beach.

Full transcript with timestamps

Ready? Hold on. What if I started every episode like that? I mean, do what you got to do.

Whatever it takes. You think you'd get over it? I think I would just tolerate it.

Okay. You know. All right. Are we going? Whatever you feel. Hey, weirdos. I'm Ash.

And I'm Elena. And this is Morbid. I feel like you should just leave that in as the beginning of the bonus episode. Yeah, I was just slapping my own face to get ready to record this.

Slapping and screaming. Slapping and screaming. It's my motto. Wow. Mikey said, "Girl, don't make that your motto."

He said, "Girl, back it up." It's a bonus episode, so we're leaving all of this in.

Yeah. All the kookiness is probably going to still be in here. Yeah. We're coming off of the most wonderful week.

Yeah, it's been a great week. No one could even attempt to hurt my feelings right now.

And they have. They sure have. And it hasn't worked. You can go [ __ ] yourself because I met Andy Cohen, [ __ ]

And Kelly Ripa, and they were both so sweet. And we were in the This This will haunt me until the day I die. Alex Cooper, if you're listening.

Yeah. That would be crazy. Um, we were in the same room as Alex Cooper and I didn't [ __ ] realize it because she was just about to go out on stage. We just did this big thing with Sirius. It was like the advertising upfront. So, there's all these like presentations that we got to be a part of. We got to meet some other people who work at Sirius.

I'm essentially co-workers with Andy Cohen now. Yeah. 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 and I didn't see that she was in there cuz I think I was getting fitted for like a microphone.

Yeah. I will regret that moment until the day I go into the grove. And here's the thing, I saw I heard Alex Cooper first cuz like you know her voice.

Yeah. And then I looked over and she was getting like touched up. Yeah. you don't want to interrupt.

And I got like I was like I don't know what to say to her cuz like I was like damn

boss ass [ __ ] I have been daddy very sweet. I could see she was very sweet to like everyone around her. So

yeah and her presentation was so good. Yeah. A+ behavior. I have been daddy gang since day one.

Yeah, you have. And I will be daddy gang until I die. I was a later later uh convert.

You were a later daddy. But I'm I'm I'm there. 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.

Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Sirius, it was a [ __ ] blast with them. We love Sirius was the goddamn move.

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

Um we're very happy. We're very happy at work. It feels so it it feels so good.

That's so This is a little side tangent for the It feels so good. It's a bonus episode. So it's loose and it's goose. We are going to get to something crazy, but we we're going to banter for a bit. There's um this, you know, this is where we can go on our tangents.

Uh 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 uh one of my kids wrote on the whiteboard, it feels good to be home.

F L E L S, which feels good. First of all, writing it feels good to be home is the most adorable thing ever cuz I'm pretty sure she was like seven. Yeah, she was she did that.

She was young. And then but she wrote fleas and we have literally put a border around it on the whiteboard and it's been there for years now to be erased and I will not allow anyone to erase it. I'm probably going to take like a saw and saw that portion of the

Yeah, like an X-Acto knife. I need to keep it forever 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? Could you laminate it? That's I don't know how to do it without like smooshing it or making it run or anything. So, if you guys have tips,

maybe you could go over it with like permanent marker or something. We're both looking at Mikey like Mikey, what would be

I know. I looked at Mikey like I bet you know. Mikey's a ci. But we'll 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. Oh, it feel it feels so good to be home.

Um just give it to her when she's like 18 for like a graduation present. The first time she comes home from college

and just be like, "Here you go. Does it still feel so good? Here's this chunk of our whiteboard from when you were

She's sentimental. She's very sentimental. She would love it. She'd cry. Yeah. Yeah. That's my girl right there.

Yeah. But this weekend was incredible. What else is going on? Still dealing with the uh Golden Globes of it all.

Still just dealing with that. Still just reeling from that. Crazy. Yeah. We're going to submit our application pretty soon.

Yeah. See if we can make it into the nomination pool. But either way, for me, even if we just get first of all, this is plenty.

Just being on the short list 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 astric asteric. But even if we got nominated, that would also be enough for me.

Oh, that's a win. Everything is enough for me. So far, a win-winwin for me. Like doesn't matter what happens after this. I'm pretty happy. And this is just my anxiety talking, but are are you ever terrified when things are so good that you're like,

"Oh, is everything okay?" 140%. Yes. In the back of my mind, I'm like, "Things are like really really

No, but you just got to keep manifesting it and you got to keep being thankful for it."

Oh, I It's all about being grateful. I think that's really like a big thing. I thank the universe every single day for every Yeah.

What are you just jingle over there for? Never take it for granted. I thank the universe every day for Mikey's jingle jingles.

I do too. Thank you for Mikey's jingle jingles universe. Thank you for Mikey, universe. Period.

Truly. 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 to Maro. Also, we learned a Tik Tok dance this weekend, and a lot of you were genuinely so surprised at Elena's ability to tell the truth with her hips, which I did not know if I should take a compliment or an insult, but I'm just kidding. Uh, but yeah, I I I guess I can learn a dance.

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. Like 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 going to be awesome. And I sat down and 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 Lagouna Beach. I was like I'm in. You're like I'm in. 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. Great.

And the pizza was really good because it was so good. Yeah. [ __ ] was just lit.

We just got in our sweats. I got my Halloween PJs. Yeah. We just like there were parties happening. There were all kinds of We didn't go out to dinner. We just said, "No,

no. We're going to stay in this hotel room. We're going to watch some old episodes of Laguna Beach.

Oh my god. And we're going to learn a Tik Tok dance." We specifically like 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. Okay.

So we were messing around with the lighting and the other takes. But um 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.

I disagree. I think they were good. I appreciate that. But but the first one was definitely the best. 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. I slept really good in the hotel the first night, but then the second night I think it was haunted for sure.

Yeah. You kept hearing creaking, right? I was hearing lots of creaking and it was freaking me out cuz there was like a [ __ ] ton of windows in the room and there were so many drapes and all I could think of I woke up at like 3:00 a.m. and all I could think of was uh the story that I told about the alien abduction where she was like I forgot to look behind the drapes.

Oh my god. And I was like I didn't look behind any of these drapes. What if there's an alien?

Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. I know there wasn't luckily but yeah that's how 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.

I feel like ordering pizza. Some I sometimes I say that I'm an introverted extrovert but I think I'm becoming more of an introvert who just has to be extroverted sometimes.

That's what I am. Yeah. 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. Yeah.

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

And then like meeting you guys afterwards is always so fun. It's so easy to be an extrovert there cuz you guys are just fun to meet and hang out.

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. Um, we were so we had just got home from New York and then we had to we or got to I should say got to go to the Two Girls One Go show which was so much fun. Sabrina and Garin know how to put on a [ __ ] show.

They're so [ __ ] good. I love them. And we were to 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 were just like, "Okay, I love you. Bye."

Just recharging. I was like, "Yeah, I was I was at my charging block." It's so true.

Yeah. It's just how it is sometimes. Yeah. You guys feel us. But yeah, so it's been a whirlwind of a week and

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

I love you guys. And you know, there's always a couple [ __ ] but you know, we we eradicate them from the bunch.

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

Yeah. Don't ask people if they're pregnant. Yeah. It's a really for a million reasons. It's a really terrible idea.

Yeah. If somebody somebody who went through infertility for 3 years, um I would have [ __ ] lost my mind if somebody asked me that.

Um so don't do that. Um but none of you would. None of that's none of you listening.

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 going to yuck people's yum on the internet because I'm a miserable cunt."

It's like, "Sorry, I was on your discover page." All right. So, let's make sure. You know what? Cuz all you listening, I know it. You're all the You're all the good ones.

Hey, beauty queens. Yeah. Hey, all you beauties. Uh, when you see people being [ __ ] on the internet, just chase them. Chase them off the internet.

Chase them down. Get them Get them gone. We got to start [ __ ] chasing these [ __ ] off the internet.

Go on. Get people who just go around and leave nasty comments on people's happiness need to be like chased off the internet. Nasty begets nasty, my dears.

I love nothing more now than to see a video of somebody that I'm like, "Wow, 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,

and they're all real and genuine. I always am leaving so much yuckiness that you need to counteract people up. It feels so good.

It does. Like, it really does. Like, it feels so good. It feels so good. Full of [ __ ] circle.

I'm telling you, like pumping people up so much better than trying to tear someone down. It's going to make you feel so much better.

You'll feel better about your own self. And we can just like turn that cuz everything sucks right now.

Oh god, it's so And like the internet is a literal [ __ ] garbage fire. I was going to say

and we can try to turn it around a little by just like spreading more positivity and making those [ __ ] troll ass [ __ ] feel unwelcome.

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 and we need to continue doing that.

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

you should you should comment. Hey, this tickles my pickle. Even just the littlest bit.

Let that person know. Mikey is making an X in the air. He's like, do not do that.

Let let that person know that their makeup is awesome. Let that person know that the hair is [ __ ] killing it.

Maybe you could say, "Hey, this struck my fancy. This struck my This made me feel, you know,

this made me feel the fleas. Let that person know that dance was great. This was a funny video. This made me laugh.

Like, just do it. Just come on up. 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.

I'm very excited for this one. And Ash really, really did the damn thing here. I really went forth and conquered. Thank you for the recognition there, brother.

Well, I was looking for something Halloweeny or like Halloween adjacent to talk about cuz it's, you know, an October bonus episode.

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

and I said, "Yeah, I want to hear about that." And I said, "Yeah, that sounds pretty [ __ ] 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. Wow. They were really committed to this

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.

Damn. Damn is right. Mummy dust. Well, I'm going to actually talk about mummy dust. Thank you for the foreshadowing, Tobias Forge.

So, it all kind of started back in ancient Egypt with mummies. There we go. But before we get there, we have to talk about something called bumen.

Okay, it's really called bitchmen. Uh, and also a pretty big mixup in language translation. So, let's talk about bitammen first. Bammen is actually one of the main ingredients in asphalt.

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

Okay. 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 uh you know your day-to-day snake and scorpion bites.

Oh yeah. Ear infections. Two things. Always looking for something for my dayto-day. Scorpion and snake bites.

It's it's just a common occurrence. It is out here, especially in Massachusetts. Scorpions everywhere.

Scorpions and snakes just biting us all. And we're all covered in asphalt. Yeah. So now we obviously know all the harmful effects of ingesting vitamin like skin cancer, skin irritation, uh respir respiratory problems, death, poison,

poison, but back then people really thought it was the tits. wellrespected Roman scientist and close friend to the emperor Gaes Plennius Secundus

aka Ply the Elder. He used to tell the Elder Ply 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. Yeah, it's fine. Take a big sip. I love that.

And you'll feel better in no time. I mean, let's go. Is it gayas? Gas. It's Gais.

Gaas. Gaes. Let's go. Ga. Plus secundis. Oh yes. Pl. And what was it? The elder.

Uh. Uh. Plenny the elder. I'm so sorry. Ply the elder. Put some respect on. I was going to say I don't want to [ __ ] it up.

He's a goddamn elder. Put some goddamn respect on his name. Hello. So yeah, that that's bitchmen.

Now that's bitchmen. That's [ __ ] It's bitching. It's bitchmen. So, now to the mummies and the mistransation 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 mistransated.

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

Like this person is a mummy not the substance. Exactly. Isn't that interesting?

That is very interesting. I didn't know that. So now because the bo they thought that the bodies were coded in bumen everyone thought they had all kinds of medical uses.

People think I'm coded in bitmen a lot. You are bammen coded. But because people wanted all the bumenumen, they, you know, these bodies started being disturbed so that people could access the substance.

Oh, that's [ __ ] up. Yeah, real messed up. And it got even more [ __ ] 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 resonous material from inbombed bodies, but the flesh of that embalmed body as well."

Oh, yeah. We're getting kooky. Not only were they like, "Hey, I'd like that bitchman." They were like, "I'd like that arm. I'd like that head."

Yeah. Yeah. I don't want that. Yeah. Well, no thank you. They did in Europe. Eventually, the practice of eating human flesh and other parts of the body found its way over there.

Awesome. Uh Richard Sugg, who wrote, "Mummies, cannibals, and vampires, the history of corpse medicine from the Renaissance to the Victorians."

Let's go, girls. He wrote, "For certain practitioners and patients, there was almost nothing between the head and feet which could not be used in some way."

Wow. And he was right. And he was correct. 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 groundup skull tincture.

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

Yeah, I get why the connection was made. I suppose if you think this is all going to work.

I mean, I get the thinking, you know, like Yeah. Like people are going to believe doctors and all these people being like, "Hey, if your head hurts,

you might as well eat some skull." Yeah, do it. Ingest some skull. Yeah. I'm not telling you to, but the doctors back then were telling people to definitely don't. But they also thought if somebody's bleeding, let's stop the bleeding with some blood jam.

Oh yeah. Which is funny because it's kind of like a double entandra. It like jams up the blood, stops the bleeding, but it's also like a jelly.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, well, that just makes me think of like coagulated blood cuz it looks like jelly.

I mean, that's essentially what this was. Like, it just I can picture it. Yeah. Well, Richard Sugg actually gives one of the original recipes for blood jam in his book. Um, 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 seieve of the finest silk. When it has all been seved, seal it in a glass jar. Renew it in the spring of every year.

Okay, we'll do like renew it in the spring of every year. It sounds very Martha Stewart at the end.

I was just going to say that. It's literally Martha being like, and you know what? Keep on top of it, girl.

Keep on top of it. Renew it in the spring of every year. It's like a garden being like

storebought is fine. If you can't make it yourself, storebought is fine. Which I don't really Well, you know what I was going to say? I don't think you could get this in the store, but you could because we're going to talk about the apothecaries in a minute. Oh, here we go.

That carried all this stuff. But first, let's get back to the groundup skull tincture.

So, originally, I'd like to get back to that. Thank you. I'm so glad. I didn't love that we were we were going so far away from it. I said, "Where is it?"

You always want to go back to the tincture. As someone with migraines, I would like to hear about this groundup skull tincture. Please.

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

I'm always looking for a remedy. 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. Uh, 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, ep epilepsy, bladder stones, really just anything causing you any kind of distress.

Whenever something is claiming that it can fix many different complex and completely distinct problems,

question. Yeah, question. I'm not saying just question. just ask a few just how's it doing all that?

How's it doing all that? You'll find out. Okay, so first let's get to the recipe. The recipe was a mix of 5 lbs of human skull.

Whoa. 5 lb of human skull, 2 lb of dried vapors, 2 lb of distilled deer horns, and 2 lb of ivory.

Oh, I know it's [ __ ] up. After a process of distilling and filtering and doing that all and all 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.

Yeah. Put a little King's drop on your tongue. Yeah, why not? 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. Holy [ __ ] Now, here's where we get to King's drops. 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. He was such a fan of the tincture. He was said to have bought the recipe from Dr. Gddard Gddard for £6,000.

Damn. And then he rebranded the name to the King's Drops. It's the relaunch for me.

I bet they had a relaunch party. It is the relaunch for me. It's the rebranding. I

I kind of love that. He said, "I bought these. I bought their name, their likeness, and they're mine now." He said, "Relaunch King's Drops."

Uh he would add them to his wine. He would add them to chocolates. Some people said that he had a um like a goblet that was made of skull that he would drink his wine in with skulls drops in it.

Here's the thing that's extraordinarily metal, but it's not good. Not good. But I have to agree with you.

But like you have to do a a guitar riff there. You absolutely do. That's insane.

Just walking around with a with a skull goblet drinking your skull tincture and wine. That's the thing. Like a skull goblet filled with skull.

That's literally so much skull in one. Yeah, that's I'm me. I'm going to I'm going to look for a different remedy for my migraines.

You know, eedrin seems to work great for you. No, I will not be be trying this.

I'm glad to hear that. That makes me feel like a lot more secure as your business partner.

Yeah. Um but he also allegedly gave them to the royal court too as a kind of truth serum.

Oh, but it's also like it's that too. Well, they think so, but I'm like, you were just giving them wine. Yeah. And people tend to get drunk and people get liquored up and they start telling you stuff,

you know. Yeah. No. Ironically, King Charles II died of a stroke. Oops. In 1685, even after upping his dosage on his deathbed to 40 drops per day.

It's so weird that that didn't work. 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. Well, I had such faith.

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

Oh yeah, that gets even gnarier. Now, this was rooted in the idea of the vital spirit, which is pretty similar to sympathetic magic. uh Pariselus 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.

Damn. 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 possessed 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.

Damn. I love the mental gymnastics that they do to make these things make sense cuz you you're like, "Yeah, all right."

Yeah. Like, sure. If I do a few back flips, that makes perfect sense. Yeah. Def. I mean, if I run over there, come back really quick, do a cartwheel, chug some Gatorade, and then do 15 more flips, I think I get it.

Yeah. If I'm Simone Biles, that makes sense. Yeah, if I get the spins, it makes sense.

Yeah. Um, this is going to really send you. He was called the father of toxicology back then.

Wow. Yeah, we really The bar was in hell. It was. It sure was. What do you mean? It sure was. So, in the case of source father, that's that's not my dad.

Not my dad. So, in the case of sourcing skulls for the king's drops, a lot of them came from Ireland, which was [ __ ] pointed.

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

He's definitely not my dad. Yeah. No. 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 [ __ ] up person.

He was a turd bucket. 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.

Yeah. For a guy named Oliver, he had a lot of nerve. He really did. Yeah. It's like you're supposed to be kind of gentle.

Yeah. I've never met an Oliver that was like a piece of [ __ ] Yeah. That was like this.

Yeah. 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 um of the skulls found in Ireland was something called skull moss or osnia. A lot of times in Ireland, enemies killed on their land weren't buried. They were just left out as warning like not to [ __ ] with Ireland.

Like what I do with spiders sometimes. Yeah. You leave the dead body somewhere. I love that.

So that the next one knows. That's pretty much the same thing. That's pretty much genius also.

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

I mean, you are Irish after all. So, because they were left to the elements, moths 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 nose bleeds as well.

Oh, good. 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 or they would literally just take the moss off of the skulls and shove it up their [ __ ] nose.

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

Wow. Yeah. We Wow. We came We've come a long way. We have. That's pretty wild. We sort of have. Skull moss is I thought what is the vital what is it called?

Uh vital force. Vital force and life mo and life force. Sorry. Vital spirit. Right. I combined life force and vital spirit.

Vital spirit sounds like a really cool band name. Yeah. Uh and Skull Moss feels like a really good name of a book.

Yeah, I would read a book called Skull Moss. Yeah. I feel like Skull Moss could even be abandoned. They opened up for Vital Spirit.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I like it. 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. Yeah. Um, one of the main things that they carried was something that you foreshadowed earlier.

Mummy powder. Mummy powder. Sort of mummy dust. 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.

Um, they thought of it as a panacea, which is a remedy for like anything that ails you whatsoever.

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

Let's go. And um, 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 uh called interior of a kitchen and it's by Martin Drooling. It was done in 1815 and a lot of art historians agree that he used a ton of this color called mummy brown.

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

They were straight up painting with mummy flesh with pieces of people. Yep. Um, in 1797, a London publication actually wrote that quote, "The most fleshy bits are the best parts."

The most fleshy bits are the best parts. The best parts for to make paint. Was that Hannah Blector who said that?

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, Mommy does. That is really fun to watch live.

There you go. Yeah, he do be thrusting. He be well in 1881 a famous artist Edward Burr Jones found out the truth about mommy 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 p

imagine that casual conversation somebody at at like coffee is just like did you hear

Yeah. Did you hear that Marcus put [ __ ] bits of flesh in his painting and everybody's like, "Ah."

They were like, "His brown his brown isn't really drying as it's supposed to." Because that that was often a complaint of mummy brown was that it kind of was like um like a little bit see-through. Like it it wasn't as potent as the rest of their paint.

Of course not. They had to use a lot of paint. That's the thing. So, he found out one day like that the rumors all the rumors were true.

Wow. 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.

Oh, that's kind of sweet. Yeah, he was sweet. He was He was very upset about it.

He's like, "That's a person." Yeah. I should bury it. Yeah. A Wasn't that nice?

That's sweet in the most [ __ ] Macob way. Yeah. We love an aware king. We do. Um, apparently the use of Mummy Brown though lasted all the way into the 20th century.

Damn. Yeah. It died out luckily. Um, and now you can't find it anywhere. No pun intended.

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

Mhm. I want to see it. There's a tube on display. I can show you a picture of it.

We can just see it. We can just see it. It's right over there. Let's go. Well, back to the 16th century now.

Back to it. So, these apothecaries, like I mentioned, would traveled 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 I of France, if you can even believe it. He was said to carry a mixture a mixture of true mubia, which was a vis a viscous black liquid directly extracted from a mummy who had at one time belonged to one of the wealthiest Egyptian families. Holy [ __ ]

And he like knew for sure he sent the right people. They robbed the right grave and they got him verified

his mixture there. And he carried it in case of emergency by the way. Yeah. Like it was literally in his first aid kit. Yeah. Absolutely.

Yeah. Mhm. So, it was 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. Um, 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. Uh, Carl H. Danfeld 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 inbalmed, no one could tell the difference.

Oh man. So you somebody not you. I'm like you over there, Ren. Yeah, me. People would be out here being like, "Oh, I'm going to go buy 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

Yeah. the fancy vital, you know, spirit and all the bummen and you could receive a camel.

That's what honestly that's what you get. I was just going to say when you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. It's just

you might get a camel. Yeah, you might. And that's kind of on you. But also like think you might get somebody who died of the plague

back then. You might get somebody who died of like dysentery. Yeah. And you're just ingesting their [ __ ]

No wonder like sometimes they really were ingesting their [ __ ] Yeah. They actually I didn't even include this, but just a quick side note cuz it's it's not really corpse uh medicine, but it's like adjacent. People would um dry out feces like

what like human and animal feces. Like he just shot up from what he was doing. And he was like, "Excuse me?" And they would turn it into a powder that they believed would cure cataracts. So they would just literally like fling [ __ ] into their eyes.

Powder into their eyes. Were they able? Here's where I'm like, we really have come far. Cuz I'm like,

what? Maybe who knows. Would you be able to convince people that like dried up [ __ ] fluck into your eyes? I mean,

and like what what line of thinking did they did they pass through here to be like if you fling dried up [ __ ] into your eyes, it will cure your cataract.

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.

Said that's different. Yeah. But I but in these apothecaries they would have like little, you know, pins that would say like

goose feal matter poop, you know, like they say we sell poop here. Get you poop here. And it wasn't just cataracts. It would it would they used it for all different kinds of things.

Yeah, of course. But that's that's another episode. Wow, that's really interesting.

Yeah. So, people were getting duped. Anyways, back to the 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. Um, and I guess you could at least guarantee what you were getting there.

Yeah. Yeah. 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.

Delicious. 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 were either being beheaded or hanged. Yeah. 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 because they were undesirable.

Yeah. Like grave robbing, you know, cuz that's the other thing, the uptick in grave robbing back then.

Oh yeah. Crazy. Oh, you were never safe. No. But at executions, you could literally buy cups of warm blood.

Oh. 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.

And obviously, you know, these 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? It was exactly like that. It was similar. 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. Yeah, I remember hearing this.

Or they would bring their own bread and dip the bread into it. Yeah. I'm sorry that that image conjured in your mind.

Seeing thinking of somebody taking bread or taking a a handkerchief and just letting it soak up the warm [ __ ] blood

and then dranking it. We What are we What are we asarian? Like we're we're real wild.

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

Yeah. I just said barbarian and I literally just went b barbarian barbarian in my head.

Like just so you know, that show slapped you guys. That was a great show. Quick detour. But yeah, at uh King Charles I different from King Charles II who died after the King's Drops didn't work when he had a stroke. his dad actually uh 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 of of spirits that you could get. That's the king.

All the spirit. 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 if he allowed his hand to touch you, they believed even that touch alone could heal you.

Wow. Wow. So imagine what his blood could do for you. Imagine, you know, I can only.

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

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

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

He does. And he also puts weedeny bits in it if he wants a little texture. Yeah, he does.

So that's a little tip from me to you. Everybody has preferences, you know. Uh but according to best lovejoy who wrote an article called a brief history of medical cannibalism cute

uh Marcilo Faco I think uh 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.

Yep. Yep. If they wanted to stay young. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. 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.

I love that they're just like, you know what, become a vampire. Yeah. Do it. Let's just all, you know, I feel they're like, I feel like Twilight's going to come out in a few hundred years and

we're going to love it. We're going to be ahead of that. They said, have you even seen Carile?

Have you even seen The Skin of a Killer, Bella? My god, have you just watched Twilight and I can't stop saying this is the skin of a killer Bella?

I love it so much. It's the best. It's so It's an interesting movie to watch now.

Period. Uh it's like I was like I just told everyone to be nice on It's entertainment at its finest.

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

Yeah. So that's that's a lot. Yeah. I'm trying to finish the whole I haven't watched the series through in so long or the

No, it's been years and years and years. But back to the blood. So you you could suck the blood of the people who were young and temperate and happy

and then you would get the skin of a killer. I like that he specified clean, too. That was smart of him.

That was nice. Um but this belief actually might have been rooted in Roman history where people allegedly would drink the blood of fall uh fallen gladiators hoping to get some of their strength and bravery via ingestion of them.

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

Like maybe just lift, bro. Yeah. Just do you even lift, bro? Do you do you even lift?

Maybe just make sure you're hydrated. Just drink some water. Yeah. Well, uh 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. Ew. 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, uh general aches and pains. And in powder form, they were also uh 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. You know what? That one I can almost understand the thought process behind.

Yeah. No, I get that. I like I we know it's ridiculous, but it's like you can almost see the through line of thinking there.

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

Like like it doesn't. Yeah. But like 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 it's the least intrusive of of them that I can think of.

Well, at le I mean like in some cases they were like ingesting the fat, but at least in that case they were just wrapping it around a wound

and they're hoping it like promotes healing, which is like it doesn't, but like

No, but I kind of get it. But yeah, I can I'm like, "All right, that one's not as offensive."

Um, 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.

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

Damn. Yeah. Like [ __ ] was so [ __ ] bleak back then. Gnarly. Like and the fact that she just hearing they were harvesting fat from fallen soldiers. Do you that entails a lot.

You have to picture that for a second. That entails a very gnarly image. And also probably harvesting their skulls as well, you know.

Oh my god. Yeah. Oh my god. Um, you also might remember from some of our coverage of the Paris catacombs that leftover fat from the surplus of bodies there uh at that time was used to make soap and candles.

Yeah. Yeah. Love that. Yeah. Luckily though, by the 18th century, the enlightenment/thege 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." That's so wild.

I feel like we should try something else. You know, that seems to be like a throughine in our species is

cuz 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.

Yeah. In a field naked and they were and some people were like, "I think we went too far. This [ __ ] is weird what we're doing." Huh. Like this is weird. At least that, you know, I'm hopeful that that actually starts to happen soon again.

I hope that people start looking around and being like, "Hey, it's [ __ ] weird. Really gross what we're doing. Maybe we should stop.

Let's stop. Maybe we should uh It is a trait of our species." So, you know, it's very very well could happen again.

It always gets worse. But it seems to happen there, too. It's just like everyone's like, "Huh,

none of this is working. We should stop." Yeah. I think they were definitely feeling weird, too, about the moral implications that were involved.

Yeah. I love for like a long time they were just like I guess we just deal with it.

I guess you know once we ran out of bodies to steal at least we were eating criminals like it's medicinal happiness.

Very much like a hunter's mentality that it's like well I use everything on the animal so

it's fine. 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.

Oh yeah. The snake oil of it all. Yeah. But mostly people just got smarter and a little more empathetic. Good for us. But shockingly enough, the last recorded listing of a mummy for sale was in a magazine in the 20th century. 1924 to be exact. So I guess not really good for us.

Yeah. I can't really give us too much of a pat on the back. Just a little tap tap. It's a little like we're getting there. Yeah. And that, my friends, is a brief history of corpse medicine. That is [ __ ] fascinating. It was really fun to dive into.

I loved that. Maybe next I'll look into fecal medicine and as you should poo. Mikey said absolutely not medicine.

I wanted to include it, but and I I don't I got like very OCD about it. I was like, well, technically it's not corpse medicine because it's not dead. So, I'll go into it another time.

This was great. I liked this. I'm glad. I had a feeling you would love this. Yeah. Anytime I get to reference a ghost song during a during a morbid episode, I'm here for it.

Yeah. Talk about people like dipping their [ __ ] bread into their bread in fallen blood.

[ __ ] Like warm execution blood. Yeah. Damn. 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. It's real [ __ ] up.

I guess one one is symbolic and one is luckily one is literal. Luckily, it's moved on to symbolism, but

symbolism. Back then they were less symbolic about it apparently. [ __ ] crazy.

Damn. Yeah, that's wild. Crazy. Well, thank you for that. You're welcome. It conjures up so many images, doesn't it?

Yeah, it really does. All right. Well, thank you for joining us on our uh 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.

It's not. But go listen to Mummy Dust by Ghost. A mummy dust. Doesn't that talk about [ __ ]

No, I don't even think it is. Oh, it's not. It's literally about like snake oil salesman.

Oh, that's like it's referring to the corpse medicine aspect of it. This one goes out to Tobias Forge.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Episode 717: October Bonus Episode - Corpse Medicine: Tomb to Table"?

Ash (Host), Elena (Host), Mikey (Guest).

What is "Episode 717: October Bonus Episode - Corpse Medicine: Tomb to Table" about?

The content explores the quirky dynamics and personal experiences of two hosts, Ash and Elena, as they share insights from their week that included notable encounters with popular figures. They reflect on the excitement and nostalgia surrounding their experiences in a lively and humorous manner, while weaving in their signature style of banter and candid storytelling.

What is mentioned in this Morbid | Podcast episode?

24 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Corpse Medicine, Adolf Ash, Medical Cannibalism, Bumen, Mummy Powder, Jonathan Goddard. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Episode 717: October Bonus Episode - Corpse Medicine: Tomb to Table"?

The episode runs 52 min; the transcript is about 10,472 words in 318 timestamped sections.

More from Morbid | Podcast

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.