- [Narrator] Humans have always had a generally curious nature when it comes to the world around us, and that has led to the beliefs
in some very bizarre things during less-informed times. Things like lambs growing on trees, animals spontaneously generating, and Brussels sprouts
harboring evil spirits. Without further ado, let's take a dive into some of the weirdest things people actually used to believe. (upbeat music) Evil Spirits Live in Brussels Sprouts. Do you dread the annual ritual of facing a pile of Brussels
sprouts at Christmas dinner? Back in the day, people
feared Brussels sprouts far more than you do, and not just because they
didn't like the taste. You see, there was once a
time in Medieval Europe, when tiny demons were thought
to be making their homes between the leaves of Brussels sprouts! Once inside, they lay waiting
for some unsuspecting human to chow down on the veggies so that they could enter their
body, making them very ill or at the very least giving
them a wicked stomach-ache. Ever wondered why people
take the painstaking effort to cut a tiny cross into
every Brussels sprouts bottom before tossing them in the pan? Apparently, that was the
best way to purge the veggies of their inherent evil. It was thought that this Christian symbol would drive the evil
spirit out from the leaves, making them safe to eat. Although the tradition has
continued into modern day, many chefs have since
stated that carving a cross into your Brussels sprouts
will only make them go soggy, so unless you really believe
a demon is hiding in there, perhaps it's time to retire
that particular custom. But where did this wacky belief come from? It stems back to the
even funnier Pagan view that farts were a sign
of demonic possession. And since Brussels sprouts
tended to make people fart, they had to be evil. Thank goodness baked beans
weren't around back then! Psst, I heard that once the evil spirits had been purged from those
pesky Brussels sprouts they traveled right into those
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host of amazing content in your subscription box every day. It's a win-win! Some babies were Changelings. Plenty of bizarre ideas befell the minds of people in the Middle Ages. In fact, many Medieval
Britons were suspicious that their babies weren't even theirs, and I'm not just talking
about taking a paternity test. Some parents believed that their child had actually been taken
away by fairy people and substituted with a changelin, a human-like creature
found in European folklore. According to legend, a
human child might be stolen by fairies out of love or malice, and in some cases an elderly fairy would be even exchanged
so that the old fairy could live a life of comfort, being coddled by its new human parents. Once a child had been
swapped for a changeling, it may not grow in size and might even possess strange
physical characteristics like long teeth or beard. But how could you know for sure? One test involved putting a shoe in a bowl of soup in front of the baby. If the baby laughed, showing
it somehow understood the joke, it was a fairy. Similarly, if you pretended
to make a loaf of bread in an eggshell in front of
the child and it giggled, it wasn't human. Because, you know, babies never laugh at
anything random, right? Suspect babies would
then be held over a fire to drive the fairies out or
would be abandoned altogether. Some scholars have proposed
that this cruel belief stemmed from a lack of understanding about infants afflicted
with unexplained diseases, disorders or developmental disabilities. Man, those were some cruel times! Drinking Gold was an anti-aging cure. Nowadays, there are all
sorts of creams and serums specially-designed to aid anti-aging, but in 16th-century France, there was a far deadlier
alternative: drinking gold. Of course, this "cure"
wasn't available to everyone, and was mostly reserved
for people of nobility. One member of the Royal Court, and King Henry II's royal
mistress, Diane de Poitiers, drank a daily tonic of gold chloride mixed with diethyl ether. Six months before she died
at the age of 66 in 1566, the French historian Brantome
noted that de Poitiers seemed ageless, and wrote: "I believe that if this lady
had lived another 100 years she would not have aged in her face, so well-composed as it was." The healing powers of gold had been touted long before De Poitiers discovered it. Roman author Pliny the Elder suggested it was a salve for warts and ulcers, while the ancient Egyptians
swore by gold-water as an anti-aging remedy. The whole idea stemmed from the fact that gold didn't corrode, which suggested people could
enjoy similar longevity by consuming it. When an alchemist figured out
how to dissolve solid gold into a liquid in the Medieval
era around the 16th century, it was advertised as a
cure-all for everything from epilepsy to mania. But It wasn't until centuries
later that people realized gold-drinking could be fatal. In fact, when de Poitiers'
body was exhumed, researchers analyzed
her hair and concluded that she likely died
of chronic intoxication due to her long habit of drinking gold. Keep searching for that fountain
of eternal youth, people! We all believed some pretty
crazy things as kids. I used to think that I'd end
up with an entire watermelon in my belly if I accidentally
swallowed a watermelon seed! What's the craziest thing
you believed as a kid? Let me know down in the comments below! Some animals spontaneously generate. Nowadays, animal birth and reproduction are just part of our
basic human understanding. But our forebearers couldn't
for the life of them understand how some creatures arrived on Earth. In the 17th century, physician and chemist
Jean Baptise van Helmont devised a home recipe
for the creation of mice. All that was needed was a
soiled shirt and some wheat. Place the shirt at the opening of a jar containing wheat grains,
and, according to Helmont, "the reaction of the leaven in the shirt with fumes from the wheat will,
after approximately 21 days, transform the wheat into mice". Sounds legit. A similar recipe for creating scorpions involved carving an
indentation into a brick and filling it with basil. Next, cover that brick with another, and place the bizarre sandwich in the sun. In just a few days, "fumes from the basil, acting as a leaving agent, will have transformed the vegetable matter into veritable scorpions." These recipes might seem totally wacko, but they spawned from some 2,000 years of false belief in spontaneous generation. In the West, this theory can
be traced back to Aristotle, who argued that some animals emerged from "putrefying earth
or vegetable matter." This was widely accepted in
Europe and the Arab world for the next two millennia. Even the greatest minds of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment,
including Isaac Newton, believed in it. The theory continued well
into the 17th century until Louis Pasteur, the
so-called master of microbes, squashed it for good. Pasteur argued in favor of
germ theory, which proved that just because you
couldn't see microscopic life, didn't mean it wasn't there at all. Let's all be glad mice and
scorpions don't just appear out of thin air, though. Ginger people would turn
into vampires after death. Redheads have never had it easy. Nowadays, ginger people
all around the world are embracing their natural hair color, but back in the day there was more than just playground
bullies to worry about when flaunting your unconventional locks. You see, the ancient Greeks believed that redheads would almost certainly turn into vampires after they died. To prevent swathes of gingers
from rising from the grave and coming after them with an
unquenchable thirst for blood, they burned their bodies to make sure that dead really meant
dead, way harsh, Tai. The thing is, this whole
belief was kinda ironic, because Achilles, Helen
of Troy and Aphrodite, some of the most prominent
figures in Greek mythology, were all said to have red hair
in texts like Homer's Iliad. And it wasn't just the
Greeks who hated on gingers. The Egyptians also believed
that redheads were unlucky and should therefore be sacrificed to eradicate the bad juju, in this case, that meant
being buried alive. The perception of ginger people
has fluctuated over time, but we can safely assume that redheads drew a lot of
attention in ancient times simply because they were harder to come by and were therefore different. As a general rule, different
equaled evil back then, and so the myth existed. While no ginger's have
resurfaced as vampires, unless you count Victoria from Twilight, it's true that redheads
need to be more cautious around the sun because
the pigment pheomelanin, which is found in red hair, makes them more susceptible to melanoma. To all the redheads out there: next time someone hates on your hair, just tell 'em draining their blood is top of your to-do
list in the afterlife! Our eyes shoot out
invisible beams of light. Sight is a complex thing. It's so complex, in fact,
that back in the day people truly believed that
we were only able to see because we shot invisible
beams of light from our eyes. It might sound like something
only a superhero could do, but according to the Ancient
Greek Philosopher Plato, eye-beams were responsible
for all human sight. These invisible light-beams
would bounce off of any objects they touched, passing back information to the brain and telling us about what
we were seeing before us. This was known as the emission theory, which has since been replaced
by the intromission theory that instead explains our ability to interpret the world around us by using light in the visible spectrum. In this case, light is actually
reflected by the objects in the environment and back into our eyes, rather than the other way around. It may seem ridiculous, but evidence of the whole eye-beam thing can be seen throughout history. For example, the custom of saluting is said to stem from the
habit of Greek soldiers putting their hands up to
their face to shade their eyes from the powerful light being emitted from their commanders' eyes. It was also thought that the light from the
eyes of some animals, like cats, who we now know to
have highly reflective eyes, could even be seen in darkness. When two people looked at each other, the belief stated that their
eye-beams twisted together, which is a pretty uncomfortable
thought if you ask me. As the centuries passed
and our understanding of the structure of
the human eye improved, the emission theory went
the way of the Dodo. But it seems to have
been revived as an aspect of monstrous superhuman
capabilities in pop-culture, just look at Cyclops from X-Men! There was a bull with acid poop. Medieval bestiaries and folktales feature many implausible creatures that people actually believed in, but none are quite as
bizarre as the Bonnacon. On first glance, it doesn't
look too terrifying, it's pretty much a regular-sized wild bull with inverted horns, but it had a particularly
nasty trick up its sleeve, or should I say, under its tail. Considering the creatures horns are practically useless in combat, the Bonnacon would squirt
a stream of acidic poop at its attackers, which
would burn them badly enough for it to make its escape. The earliest known reference
to this ancient beast is said to be found in Pliny
the Elder's "Natural History," where he describes it as being found in the region of Paeonia,
which roughly corresponds today as being the northern part of
Greece and western Bulgaria. Belief in the Bonnacon became
so popular in medieval times that it was included in many bestiaries, including one, the Aberdeen Bestiary, that notes how the heat of the
creature's poop is so strong that it actually sets fire
to anything it encounters. Of course, there's no evidence to support the existence of the Bonnacon. But it's important to remember
that traveling long distances in the Middle Ages was
extremely difficult, so most people had to rely
on the reports of those who had the resources to do so. That meant there was no way
of knowing what was real and what wasn't unless
you saw it for yourself. It's a good job this flaming poop bull turned out to be nothing but a fantasy. Lambs grew on trees. There are many instances
when a traveler being unable to properly relate what they had seen resulted in imprecise descriptions
being accepted as fact, but none are quite as
impressive as the belief that lambs grew on trees. According to ancient lore,
in the woods of Central Asia, formerly known as Tartary,
there existed a mysterious plant known as the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary. Rather than bearing fruit,
atop this long, swaying stalk jutting from the ground was
a bleating, life-sized lamb hovering a few feet off the ground. It may seem ridiculous, but
the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary crops up in ancient Hebrew texts, medieval literature and even poetry, philosophy, and scientific
musings of the Renaissance. One of the first to report
on this mythical plant was Sir John Mandeville,
who referred to it in his travel writings on Tartary. In Mandeville's imagined anatomy, the plant branched out
into several seed-pods from which new-born
lambs would spring forth. In another variation, each
lamb would hover off the ground on a flexible stalk
which allowed it to chomp on the grass below. Once all the vegetation
within reach had been eaten, the lamb-plant would die. The lambs were particularly
vulnerable to wolves, but if a human could procure one by severing the stems
with a bow-and-arrow, it was considered a delicacy. Mandeville's thoughts on the lamb-tree were taken very seriously
in Medieval England, but how did this myth really begin? The cotton plant, first
bought over from India, had been described by the ancient Greeks as being like fleeces from the trees. Meanwhile, Alexander the Great's
admiral would later write that "there were in India
trees bearing flocks or bunches of wool." And so, the whole thing
played out like one long, poorly-played game of telephone until people came to their
senses and realized that, no, lambs did not grow on trees after all. The forgotten continent. It may seem like we
have a pretty good grasp on the world and its landmass,
but in the mid-19th century everything was thrown into
question with the idea that humans had somehow forgotten about an entire continent called Mu. You're probably thinking, where could this mythical
continent possibly be found? Well, according to those
who accepted its existence, it would be located right about here. The theory was first
proposed in the late 1800s by an enthusiastic, but
entirely inaccurate, archeologist named Augustus Le Plongeon. He wrote a treatise claiming
that the Mayan civilization had actually originated
on the lost continent, which was once populated
by an ancient civilization, but that it had sunk into the
Atlantic Ocean some time ago. He also claimed that the
civilization of Egypt was founded by Queen Moo, a
refugee from the land's demise, while other refugees had
fled to Central America and became the Maya. When he died in 1908, British writer James Churchward
continued to peddle the myth by claiming that he he'd
found a bunch of clay tablets in India which contained
writings in a lost language that only he and two others could read. According to Churchward,
the civilization of Mu thrived from 50,000 to 12,000 years ago, and at the time of its
demise the continent was home to 64 million people. Many people have believed
in Mu over the years, but archeologists, scientists
and geologists alike have stridently denied its
existence for a few reasons. Firstly, Churchward claimed
that a super volcano had essentially spelled Mu's end. But under the theory of plate tectonics, it's impossible for an
entire continent to sink within that timeframe. Even changing the shape of a continent, like when Pangaea split,
would take millions of years. And if Mu had really existed,
then why is there no evidence of it on the ocean floor? It's a fun idea, but I'm afraid to say Mu is a load of old hogwash! Tobacco enemas were a thing. Around the year 1774,
doctors William Hawes and Thomas Cogan from London
formed what would later become the Royal Humane Society. During the 18th century, this society promoted the
rescue of drowning people, and paid four guineas to anyone who successfully brought a
drowning victim back to life. Around the same time, tobacco had been imported
to England from Virginia. It would be chewed, inhaled,
smoked in a clay pipe and, bizarrely, blown up peoples butts. American First Nations people had pioneered the use of
tobacco enemas in medicine, and when word made its way across the pond volunteer medical
assistants with the society decided to use the procedure to treat half-drowned London citizens who'd been yanked from the Thames. It worked by inserting an enema
tube with rubber attachments into the victim and blowing smoke into it. This was thought to
warm the drowned person, while also stimulating respiration, but, of course, the
whole thing was nonsense. Nevertheless, it became a
fashion among European doctors, much like bloodletting. And soon, the treatment was
being used for headaches, respiratory failure, colds,
hernias, abdominal cramps, and later even typhoid
fever and cholera outbreaks. Besides being totally useless, tobacco enemas could also
have disastrous consequences for the smoke blower. If the practitioner accidentally inhaled, instead of blowing,
during a coughing spell, some of the cholera
particles could be swallowed. Mmm, yummy! It wasn't until 1811, when English scientist
Ben Brodie discovered that nicotine was toxic to the heart, that tobacco enemas went out of fashion. And that, my friends, is where the phrase "blowing smoke up your butt" comes from! Bloodletting was an effective cure. During less-informed times people were willing to try
all sorts of wacky cures for their ailments. Around 3,000 years ago, the
Egyptians invented a practice known as bloodletting,
which would be continued by the Ancient Greeks and Romans and then spread through
Europe during the Middle Ages. In fact, this rather grisly cure, which involved applying
leeches to a person's body to drain them of their blood, was a thriving industry
up until the 19th century. It seems pretty gross, but
it all stemmed from the idea that the body, according to Hippocrates, was made up of four basic humors: blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile. Being ill meant having an
imbalance of the four humors, so treatment involved removing an amount of the excessive humor by various means, including bloodletting. Even after belief in the four humors faded by the second millennium, bloodletting remained popular. Because surgery was
still a crude practice, people turned to the
church for medical help, until, in 1163 a church edict
forbade monks and priests from practicing bloodletting. And so, people turned to
an unlikely help: barbers. Barbers performed many
functions at the time including minor surgeries,
dental practices and administering leeches. The barber would coat
the desired body part with sugar-water, milk or blood to entice the leeches to start sucking, and each patient could have
up to 100 leeches at a time! Thankfully, physicians
had started speaking out against the effectiveness of
the practice by the 1900s, so don't bother heading to the local pond next time you feel a
bit under the weather. Women's bodies weren't
designed to handle train rides. Concerns about traveling from A to B have existed since humans learned to walk, but nothing was quite as terrifying as those new-fangled locomotives
they called "trains", especially if you were a woman. When the world's first
steam-powered locomotives were unveiled in the early 1800s, men feared that its immense speed, with a top speed of 50 miles
per hour, would be so extreme that it would cause a woman's
uterus to fly from her body. In 1898, one Berlin doctor even wrote that "violent movements of the body can cause a shift in the position and a loosening of the uterus, thus defeating a woman's
true purpose in life, i.e., the bringing forth
of strong children." Women watching this, feel free
to grab your pitchforks now. Obviously, there are no cases
of this actually happening and the flying uterus myth
died off pretty quickly. But this irrational fear of female travel didn't end at locomotives. As automobiles gained
traction in the early 1900s, they were also seen as
equally evil and dangerous. There were no stop signs,
warning signs, traffic lights, driver's education,
streetlights or brake lights, drivers licenses or posted speed limits. People hadn't exactly
figured out left-turns yet, and drink driving wasn't even
considered a serious crime! Driving a noisy, erratic
car, nicknamed devil wagons, was something of an extreme sport. For that reason, they were definitely not
considered suitable for, prepare to eye-roll, "delicate"
and "fragile" ladies, because they wouldn't be
able to control themselves inside the vehicle. But fearful reactions to
new technology are age-old. Some of our biggest concerns about the dangers of
transportation nowadays revolve around stuff like
our GPS getting hacked and driving us into a lake. But at least we know trains aren't out to get the entire female species! There were tiny people in sperm. The birds and the bees has
always been a delicate subject, but back in the 17th and 18th centuries scientists thought they
had it all figured out. It was simple, in fact: inside every sperm cell
was a tiny little man which then grew up to be a
much larger man or woman! The theory was known as preformationism, and there was a peculiar logic behind it. At the time, how babies formed
was really anyone's guess. People warmed to the
idea of preformationism because it made logical
and mechanical sense: there were tiny people
running around in sperm, and those tiny people also had
tiny people in their sperm, like some reproductive Russian doll. The competing theory, epigenesis, stated that neither sperm nor the egg were independently alive, but that somehow during the pregnancy they acquired a vital
essence that created a human. Of course, this wasn't far off the truth, but people much preferred
the much simpler idea that existing copies were just enlarged under the right conditions. When Antoine van Leeuwenhoek,
the father of microbiology, became one of the first
men to observe sperm under the microscope, he reported that within those
individual cells were tiny, folded up individuals. His drawings and descriptions
of these tiny infants provided the argument for performationists for nearly a century. But as people were able to make more accurate observations of sperm cells, eggs and animal embryos
one thing became clear: there are no tiny men inside sperm. Which of these wacky beliefs surprised or amused you the most? If you've got a hunger on
for all things historical, why not check this video out next, it's about all the lies you
were told by the history books! Thanks for watching! (upbeat music)
