How have people through history thought of and approached reproduction and family planning? Would you trust their birth control methods or consider it another case of the fallacy of ancient wisdom? Join our co-hosts, Eric Slyter and Jordan Watney, as they explore the history of documented birth control methods in ancient Egypt and the evolution of reproductive theory from antiquity to modern history. How do the solutions they devised fit into the context of the culture and their understanding of how conception worked; were their ideas a result of causation or correlation? Why was crocodile dung so significant in ancient Egypt? What does modern science indicate […]

Α reconstructed appearance of Myrtis, an 11-year-old girl who died during the plague of Athens and whose skeleton was found in the Kerameikos mass grave, National Archaeological Museum of Athens

Just how pure is your raw water source? Do you trust it? Would you drink it? Join your Horrific History co-hosts, Eric Slyter and Jordan Watney, as they take several trips in the Horrific History time and space machine to look at cases in history when trusted water supplies turned deadly and how some earlier societies handled water quality concerns. Learn how waterborne diseases can help determine the outcome of a war, encourage societies to develop regulations on industry and even kill already starving settlers in a new (to them) land. We’ll also take a brief look at how people have viewed and measured water quality through history (hint: up until recent history water quality was assessed only by human senses), and natural contaminants which can be harmful (or deadly) when you’re drinking water to achieve that healthy glow.

 

How did scientists prove that typhoid helped determine the outcome of the Peloponnesian War between the Spartans and the Athenians around 430 BCE, and what conditions allowed it to help wipe out an estimated 1/3 of the population in Athens? Is it true that people in the middle ages only drank beer instead of water because the quality was so bad? What made the water so toxic […]

10 Apr / 2018

Time to Float

Would you drink raw water? Listen to your co-hosts, Eric Slyter and Jordan Watney, give you a special preview of our upcoming raw water episode. While our nonprofit had to briefly pull our volunteers from the podcast to do a week of programming for Knights of Veritas and this delayed our scheduled release, we’re on-track to release our new episode next week. Hear some things you can look forward to learning more about in the new episode, what ate up their time and how you have an opportunity to be included in an upcoming episode! Come back next week for raw water but in the meantime, you can listen to Eric Slyter do his Pennywise the Dancing Clown impersonation… just remember, no squeam allowed!

 

If you want to prepare yourself for our raw water episode, we recommend listening to our Season 1 episodes: For a Healthy Glow & Too Much of a Good Thing. Don’t get caught floating in the sewers while you wait, and we’ll catch you next week!

 

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Blog post photo credit: pavlinajane Winter puddle via photopin (license)

Slideshow photo credit: Curtis Gregory Perry Puddles via photopin (license)