You won’t believe what some doctors used to do to ‘help’ their patients. Let’s talk about that. ♪(theme music)♪ – Good Mythical Morning! – Now, when doctors take the Hippocratic oath, they’re basically saying, “I’m not gonna do anything to harm my patients.” – Hopefully help. – Yes, but, for most of the past, all you had to do to be a doctor was just have, like, a lot of confidence and a – little bottle of tincture, – (laughs) and some of the things that doctors did to ‘help’ their patients, I think, did more harm than good, and we’re gonna find out today whether or not you’re good at deciphering whether or not the things that we’re going to tell you about are real or fake! It’s time to play: – ♪(trumpet music)♪ – (Rhett) Is This Ridiculous Remedy Real? – Or Do I Have An Overactive Imagination? – Now, we’ve talked about weird folk remedies before, but this is different. These are actual remedies from real doctors – ‘Real doctors’! – in the past, right? Yes, yes. These are the things that the medical – community did. – Or you made up. – Or maybe they didn’t! – Okay. That’s the question. Now, here’s how this works, Link. I’m gonna present a procedure to you. You tell me if it’s real or fake. If you get it wrong, you have to take a little drop of Rhett’s Remarkable Remedy. It’s very tasty as you will find out unless you don’t get any wrong, – and then I’ll drink some later. – Okay. Alright, here’s the first one: If you had a headache or a stomach ache in Europe anytime between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries, you could expect to be prescribed ground-up bones and flesh of mummies. What are you gonna do with it? Eat it, of course! Man. They’re destroying, like, historical mummies for headaches? – And tummy aches. – Man, someone’s gotta step in and protest that. Not still doing it, are they? – (laughs) – Well, it’s the twelfth and seventeenth – centuries. – This rings true, and I think it’s also effective. I’m saying true. – You’re right, Link! – (ding sound) It’s real! It’s called mummy powder. This was such a popular cure-all that some doctors who couldn’t find actual historical mummies just ground up dead people. – Yeah. That’s what a mummy is. – Yeah, well, but not like– – Just like grandma. – Ew. – (crew laughs) – You know, they, like, died yesterday of the flu. That didn’t work. – Oh. It didn’t. – Grandma and the mummies. – Okay. – Neither of them worked. – Hm. – How about this? – But I got it right. – When the Black Plague showed up in your ‘hood, Medieval doctors recommended a two-step procedure: Step one: Seal your farts in jars. Step two: Open those jars and sniff your own farts. – (laughs) – Not to be confused with fart in a jar. – Pootcrate.com. – Pootcrate that we started. – Our side business. – (crew laughs) Which was not meant to treat anything it was just meant for – (laughing) pleasure. – (crew laughs) But this was to treat the Black Plague. Mm. Well if we would’ve know that, we would’ve put that into the marketing for Pootcrate. – Right, yeah. – Instead, we made up Pootcrate in the same way you made up that one, so. That’s what I’m saying. It’s false. I mean, they didn’t have jars back then anyway. – It’s real, Link. – (buzzer sound) – What? – Doctors believe that ‘like cured like’. They applied that to a lot of things. So, they thought that since the Plague was caused by deadly vapors, they precribed – (both) deadly vapors. – as the cure. Surprisingly, this didn’t work! Sixty percent of Europe’s population was killed by the Black Plague. – Alright, so, what is this? – I don’t know. – It’s not from your person, is it? – No, no. It’s not, like, – oil from my forehead. – (crew laughs) – Could be, though. – That’s a lot. It is rosemary– No, no. It is – (Stevie) Oil of oregano. – Oil of oregano, which is– You know, it’s a supplement. It’s just gonna be unpleasant. But it could– Oh gosh. You didn’t have to do that much. Refreshing? – (crew laughs) – (exhales) You’re gonna lose the ability to taste. Don’t– I was– Just a drop, man. – Not the whole vile. – How much went in my mouth? – A lot. – (crew laughs) Like, seven drops. Good luck with that. – (laughs) Oh! – Alright, while you’re recovering from that, I’ll tell ya’ in– – I can’t even speak! – (crew laughs) – In Elizabethan London– – My tongue is frozen! – Do you feel like you’re being remedied? – No. I feel like my tongue has disappeared. – Mm. – It’s numb! Take some time to recover. In Elizabethan London, lustrous, healthy hair was considered a sign of wealth. So, if yours started falling out, you better douse it with cat urine! It was believed that this could reverse the process of male baldness. – Cat urine shampoo. – Well, cats shed when they pee on themselves. So this doesn’t– No they don’t pee on them– – What. – (crew laughs) – I think my remedy is backfiring. – I’m gonna say that’s– I’m gonna say that’s true. I don’t think it works, – but I’ma say it’s true. – Link, I made this one up. – (buzzer sound) – Awh. – (crew laughs) – (laughs) Gosh. Mm. – Made it up. However at– – My breath smells like an – Italian restaurant exploded. – It will not help with baldness, but rubbing cat urine on your hair does have one very pronounced effect. It makes your hair smell like cat urine. Okay. That’s another dip. Another drip. – That’s true, by the way. – Yeah. – When you put cat urine– – Yeah, I’ve tried it. – Eugh. – Woah. (sniffs) Wow, you do. It smells like the Olive Garden over there. – (exhales) Ew. – If you had a stutter in the nineteenth century, you might cure yourself by having a triangular wedge cut out of your tongue without anesthesia. Sure, you may never speak again, – but at least you aren’t stuttering! – You vifurtate your tongue? Yeah. I think bifurcate. Is vifurtate a word? – I think we’ve had this argument before. – (crew laughs) – We’ve been through this. – I can bifurcate it. You can vifutate it. I thought they cut the thing underneath the tongue. Mm. Mm! Hm-hm. Got some bread to dip in your mouth? – (crew laughs) – I’ma say true. I think this is true. – You’re right, Link. – (ding sound) – This is actually from J.F. Deifenbach. – But when it didn’t work– What? Didn’t he stop prescribing this – Yeah, that’s exactly what happened. – hanus thing? It’s exactly what happened. He did it for a while and they were like, “It doesn’t work,” and he was like, “Okay, I’ll stop.” – (crew laughs) – I’ll just open, like, – a piercing parlor. – Yup. Back in Ancient Egypt, it was a good idea to keep a stash of moldy bread on hand. This way when your cousin stabs you over your favorite amulet, you could rub the moldy bread all over – the wound to cure it! – True. You– You’re so confident. So confident. – I is so confident. – Well, that’s true! – It is real. – (ding sound) – Yeah, I’ve heard about moldy bread. – Well, I mean, that’s how antibiotics were discovered in the first place, you know. They discovered that mold– ‘Penicillin’ could fight off infections. – In Egypt. – No. And the thing is, I don’t know how well this actually works, but it’s based on– I mean, the principle– – They stumbled into it. – Mold does have antibiotic properties. – Aah. – How ’bout this one? If you were a Medieval lady on her lady week, – I could be. – you didn’t have a whole lot of options to reduce cramping. Frequently, doctors prescribed a poultice made of horse manure and poison ivy as a way to get rid of the pain. Hey, at least you’re focusing on the itching and not the cramping! (laughs) – Poison ivy and manure? – Horse – (both) manure – and poison ivy? – Yeah. As a poultice. – Applied where? Just anywhere the pain’s coming. The mid-region. – (crew laughs) – Oh, gosh. – The thorax. – I mean, I would believe one or the other, but you put those two things together– Man. Your cruel mind made this one up. False. – It is fake. – (ding sound) – Yes! It was so bad. – But you know where I got this from? I actually looked at a pack of Midol and I saw that two of the inactive ingredients were horse manure and poison ivy. – (crew and Link laughs) – Not true! I didn’t see that, Midol! – Don’t sue me! – (sings) Midol will help you get your Z’s. – It is not– That is not in Midol. – (normal voice) That’s not right. – (crew laughs) – And that is not the slogan for Midol. Forget we ever mentioned it. I’m just talking about a doll that I own. – Okay? – He does have a lot of dolls. – Alright, Link. – Like, he makes his bed, and then he places all the dolls on the bed and he’s like, – “Don’t touch my dolls!” – Okay, Link, one more chance to avoid – another drop of my remedy. – Oh, okay. You might think I’m blowing smoke up your butt when I tell you that blowing smoke up your butt was a frequently used remedy in Europe from the early eighteenth century up until the early nineteenth century. – Yep. – So the opposite of the jar. – The opposite of the jar. – (crew laughs) – No, there’s no farts involved in this. – Oh. – It’s just– – No, you’re makin’ a fart. It’s one person– I think you can– – That’s how farts are made. – You could probably do this to yourself with, like, a cigarette and a tube, or you can a doctor to do it. – Blow smoke up your– – I think there’s probably a kit that you get at home. The home kit for blowing smoke – up your own butt. – (crew laughs) – Yes. – Use a pipe, cigar. Okay, I’m gonna say– (laughs) Man, I hope this is false. True. I’ma say true though. – You’re right, Link! – (ding sound) – Oh! They did it! They did it! – It was real! Did the doctor– (blows into hand) Well, all I know is that Native Americans at the time were using tobacco smoke to – cure a lot of different things. – Mhm. They even tried to use this to resuscitate dead people. Which I can see that working, but this really feels like they were – trolling the settlers. – Yeah. (laughs) You know what I’m saying? “Let’s tell them to blow smoke up thier – butts.” – (crew and Link laugh) “Oh, look at him! He’s doin’ it! Oh gosh!” Well, congratulations, Link. My tincture hopefully did something for you. – Oh, yeah. You gotta taste that. – You didn’t have to take too much of it. I’ll try it in Good Mythical More. Thanks for playing, and thanks for liking, commenting, and subscribing. – You know what time it is. – I’m Kami. – I’m Julia. – (both) And we’re at school, and it’s time to spin the Wheel of Mythicality! We’ve got some remarkable remedies of our own. Well, they don’t really cure anything, but they moisturize your beard and moisturize your lips. Available only at RhettAndLink.com/store. (Link) Peculiarly perfect peanut butter peppermint lip balm. RhettAndLink.com/store. Is that what you say? – Yep. – Click through to Good Mythical More. We got a round two of these weird medical procedures that people actually – believed would work. – World’s worst garbage man. – Got my garbage here. – (makes beeping sounds) – Putting it in the thing. – Alright, let’s go. – It’s over here. – Nope.Gonna need you as well. – I take bodies. – You take– – I take bodies. – Well, I’m a live body. I was in the CIA. You’re dead now. [Captioned By Hayleigh: GMM Captioning Team]