Behind the Scenes Minis: Serving Lip and Ethics

Holly talks about Gladys Bentley's gender presentation, and the trouble with Maceo Sheffield. She and Tracy also discuss James Braid's ethics in both medicine and hypnotism. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Speaker 01

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• 1:33Speaker 03

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• 3:07Holly Frey?

  Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio.

• 3:17Holly Frey?

  Hello and happy Friday. I'm Holly Frey.

• 3:20Tracy V. Wilson?

  And I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

• 3:22Holly Frey?

  We talked about Gladys Bentley this week.

• 3:24Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah.

• 3:25Holly Frey?

  And her sort of wild ride of a story.

• 3:28Tracy V. Wilson?

  It is. Yeah.

• 3:30Holly Frey?

  In some ways, it's so exuberant and joyful and wonderful that it makes talking about the parts that are a little bit trickier feel like a letdown.

• 3:37Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah.

• 3:38Holly Frey?

  But those are also important.

• 3:40Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah.

• 3:43Holly Frey?

  One of the things that we didn't bring up during the show that is a little more on the lighter side, I didn't know for sure if this was always the case or not. Like, we talked about, you know, she was, in many ways, very masculine presenting.

• 4:00Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah.

• 4:01Holly Frey?

  She was a large woman who wore these tailored men's suits.

• 4:05Tracy V. Wilson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:05Holly Frey?

  So striking.

• 4:06Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah.

• 4:07Holly Frey?

  She always had makeup on.

• 4:09Tracy V. Wilson?

  Oh.

• 4:10Holly Frey?

  Like any picture I've seen of her, she always had, even when she was in that phase of her life.

• 4:15Tracy V. Wilson?

  Mm hmm.

• 4:16Holly Frey?

  Full lipstick, usually a bit of eyeshadow or eyeliner. Like, so it was just interesting to me, that juxtaposition. And at first I thought, oh, maybe it's just for stage.

• 4:27Tracy V. Wilson?

  Right.

• 4:28Holly Frey?

  But then I saw a picture of her like out and about in New York and she had makeup on.

• 4:32Tracy V. Wilson?

  Uh huh.

• 4:33Holly Frey?

  And I was like, well, maybe she liked me. I mean, that happens too.

• 4:37Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah.

• 4:38Holly Frey?

  It just struck me as interesting that she's often talked about as being like super mask presenting. And I'm like, yeah, but she always really had like, she was serving lip. Like she always had a good, like it was lip glossed. It was not just like a color thing.

• 4:52Tracy V. Wilson?

  Right.

• 4:52Holly Frey?

  And so I was fascinated.

• 4:53Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah.

• 4:55Holly Frey?

  Okay. So the article.

• 4:56Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah.

• 4:57Holly Frey?

  And the things. One, I was surprised because I have not seen anyone really, except for one book.

• 5:07Tracy V. Wilson?

  Mm hmm.

• 5:08Holly Frey?

  And even they did not go into deep, they went into a little bit more detail. Most people do not mention the problem of Maceo Sheffield.

• 5:18Tracy V. Wilson?

  Mm hmm.

• 5:18Holly Frey?

  And his claims about JT Gibson.

• 5:21Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 5:23Holly Frey?

  He is obviously a questionable source.

• 5:28Tracy V. Wilson?

  Right.

• 5:28Holly Frey?

  And I, I, a lot of people, they're like, well, she said that she was married to this, this theater critic, but his best friend said that he vehemently denied it. And like, often that's just where it's left. And I'm like, was he best friends? I don't know that that's verified.

• 5:45Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah.

• 5:45Holly Frey?

  Can we trust this dude? I don't know that we should.

• 5:49Tracy V. Wilson?

  Right.

• 5:49Holly Frey?

  It's super weird, even to the point, even in his time, like we've talked about many times on this show, like, oh, in the 1700s, you could change your identity and no one would question. But this is in the 1920s and 30s.

• 6:04Tracy V. Wilson?

  Right.

• 6:04Holly Frey?

  And then in the 50s.

• 6:06Tracy V. Wilson?

  Right.

• 6:07Holly Frey?

  Where he's like, he's become a completely different person. And there are a lot of news articles about him from that time, talking about all the accolades he should get for like his work in the black film industry. So it's like.

• 6:22Tracy V. Wilson?

  Uh huh.

• 6:23Holly Frey?

  He, it's a, it was a whole life refresh for him after that.

• 6:27Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah.

• 6:28Holly Frey?

  Which is wild. But I did find an interesting article that only briefly mentioned that one of the reasons if Gibson had been genuinely upset, even if maybe they had gotten married, or there was an understanding that she could say that, because he apparently never divorced his first wife.

• 6:49Tracy V. Wilson?

  Oh.

• 6:50Holly Frey?

  This alleged that he was worried there was going to be legal trouble.

• 6:53Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 6:54Holly Frey?

  But again, this is all speculation and gossip. We don't know.

• 6:58Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah. Her article is so interesting to me because it is very possible for people to understand their gender and their sexuality very differently over different parts of their lives, right?

• 7:16Holly Frey?

  For sure.

• 7:17Tracy V. Wilson?

  And the idea of being born that way has been sort of part of the queer rights movement.

• 7:26Holly Frey?

  Yeah.

• 7:26Tracy V. Wilson?

  Trying to dispel the idea that it's a choice and that, like, the, the sort of popularity of that idea has come and gone at various points over the decades. So like, I, I don't want to suggest in any way that if somebody in their young life describes their gender or their sexual orientation or some, something in one way, and then later on in their life, they describe it in a totally different way. Like, I don't in any way want to suggest that that's not valid.

• 7:57Holly Frey?

  Right. They know themselves better than we do.

• 8:00Tracy V. Wilson?

  But this seems so clearly to have been happening in the midst of this with a corresponding rise in the queer community's efforts to get just basic dignity and rights and a backlash to that.

• 8:16Holly Frey?

  Yeah.

• 8:17Tracy V. Wilson?

  Like, that's definitely part of the context there.

• 8:21Holly Frey?

  And this leads into a couple of other things that I wanted to talk about. One was one piece of analysis, I think it was a paper that I read, that suggested that really, if you, if you look at this, you could consider it through the lens of how astute.

• 8:41Holly Frey?

  Gladys was using the press to the advantage of her career. Because if you read that article, you'll notice she talks a lot about, I'm still singing. I just recorded a new album.

• 8:54Tracy V. Wilson?

  Oh, sure.

• 8:54Holly Frey?

  She's kind of working in self-promotion of what she's doing with her music career.

• 9:00Tracy V. Wilson?

  Right.

• 9:00Holly Frey?

  Into the discussion. It's like woven through that article, which is very smart and just an interesting way to look at it. Here is where I got sort of heartbroken about the article. And it's not the article itself. There are two things that happened. One is that in subsequent issues of Ebony, there are a lot of letters to the editor.

• 9:28Holly Frey?

  That are maybe not what you're expecting. They are written by other women who are like, yes, I thought I was gay, but now I'm fixed and I'm right.

• 9:36Tracy V. Wilson?

  Oh, no.

• 9:37Holly Frey?

  And I'm okay. And it's a little like, oh, how much of this was going on where people were just being told who they were was wrong.

• 9:44Tracy V. Wilson?

  Right.

• 9:45Holly Frey?

  It's very heartbreaking to read. Even though they often are like, and now I'm married and I'm happy. And I'm like, are you? Again, people can be, people can shift their, their identity, their, you know, they can realize different things about themselves at different stages of life. But it was so many that I was like, here is where I really got chagrined though. There were a lot of other articles that came out in the 1950s that Gladys does not appear to have had anything to do with. That sort of use her as an example.

• 10:20Tracy V. Wilson?

  Oh, no.

• 10:21Holly Frey?

  Of like, see, see, some of them are like very faux scientific. You know what I mean?

• 10:27Tracy V. Wilson?

  Right.

• 10:27Holly Frey?

  There's actually a third sex and it can be cured with hormone therapy. And it's like.

• 10:34Holly Frey?

  This is you're exploiting her story to support some very potentially damaging ideas.

• 10:42Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah. Well, and also kind of feeds into the idea of conversion therapy, which to be clear is literal torture. Like

• 10:51Holly Frey?

  Yes.

• 10:51Tracy V. Wilson?

  Conversion therapy tortures people.

• 10:54Holly Frey?

  Yes, PTSD is

• 10:56Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah.

• 10:57Holly Frey?

  Like, there are a lot of papers about it.

• 10:59Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah, it's, it's not effective. I mean, if you take the idea as good that you could change someone's sexual orientation, which I am not saying that at all. But if you started with that as your baseline, it doesn't do that. Like, it does, it doesn't, it's not effective at doing that.

• 11:21Holly Frey?

  No.

• 11:22Tracy V. Wilson?

  And then also that whole idea, like, I just, we don't need to be doing that in the first place. Like,

• 11:31Holly Frey?

  Yeah, I mean, I'm very curious what her experiences were when she was a kid, when her mom was taking her to doctors. And I don't know. I mean, clearly she had reconciled with her mom since they were living right there together

• 11:46Tracy V. Wilson?

  Right.

• 11:46Holly Frey?

  in the 50s, but I can't imagine

• 11:50Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah.

• 11:51Holly Frey?

  in the late teens and early 1920s, what that would have been like.

• 11:56Tracy V. Wilson?

  Mm hmm.

• 11:57Holly Frey?

  Very misguided. The other thing that's interesting that she mentions in the article is that, well, I'm one of the lucky ones because I'm wealthy enough to afford this treatment.

• 12:06Tracy V. Wilson?

  Oh.

• 12:07Holly Frey?

  And it's like, how does that set up a dynamic of like, well, if you're one of these unfortunate people who's not right, you just, I guess you got to stay not right if you don't have money. And it just like, there are so many problems and layers and like a stack of problems.

• 12:21Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah.

• 12:22Holly Frey?

  And then especially when it gets flipped and she gets held up as this emblematic example of like, how you could fix your life. And then to kind of put a button on all of that. One of the, the books that I looked at, there's a chapter on her. And one of the things that that writer mentions that I had not considered before I read it.

• 12:44Holly Frey?

  Uh, was that he notes that when there is that footage of Gladys on You Bet Your Life in 1958.

• 12:55Tracy V. Wilson?

  Mm hmm.

• 12:56Holly Frey?

  She looks a lot older than 51.

• 12:58Tracy V. Wilson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 13:00Holly Frey?

  And it's like, okay, was she lying about her age? Or did all of this just really age her?

• 13:07Tracy V. Wilson?

  Mm hmm.

• 13:08Holly Frey?

  Because when you see her like right up to the point that she kind of leaves New York and goes to LA, she still looks like that incredibly gorgeous, vibrant.

• 13:18Tracy V. Wilson?

  Mm hmm.

• 13:19Holly Frey?

  You know, very youthful. And it seems like in a short period of time, that shifted really quickly. And I'm, I don't know that we'll ever unlock what was going on there. Listen, sometimes people just go through a period where they age very quickly.

• 13:34Tracy V. Wilson?

  Right.

• 13:34Holly Frey?

  Welcome to my recent years. Uh, but.

• 13:37Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah.

• 13:38Holly Frey?

  Like through nothing other than just like my genes hit the moment where they're like, by the way, here come all of the things. So I don't know, but it does make me wonder if, if all of this was incredibly stressful for her.

• 13:49Tracy V. Wilson?

  It seems like it has to have been.

• 13:51Holly Frey?

  Yeah.

• 13:52Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah. I think that her life and what she went through over those decades and the, like the evolution of the lavender scare has a lot of parallels to what we are living through now.

• 14:09Holly Frey?

  Mm hmm.

• 14:09Tracy V. Wilson?

  Where we got the tiniest, tiniest bit of protection and equity for trans people.

• 14:16Holly Frey?

  Yeah.

• 14:17Tracy V. Wilson?

  And then that sparked a coordinated backlash that is horrific and inexcusable.

• 14:25Holly Frey?

  Yep. Yeah. And in her case, there is that extra layer of that's all the stuff that made me famous and wealthy. What's going to happen to me now?

• 14:34Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah.

• 14:34Holly Frey?

  Like, where does my career go now when I, I'm not allowed to be that anymore? Uh, which is, you know, just another layer, I imagine of stress. So if you can go take a peek at that video of her singing, it sure is worth it though. Because even in that phase of her life, once she starts banging away on the piano, it's like the joy comes out of her. It's really cool.

• 14:57Tracy V. Wilson?

  Right.

• 14:58Holly Frey?

  And she was just amazing. And also you get to see Groucho Marx and this other guy kind of dancing to it, which is pretty fun. Because Groucho Marx in the, in the program, I mean, I don't know what he got briefed on before it, but it's like, he realizes as he's talking to her, to her, oh, you're that Gladys Bentley. Like he didn't recognize her. So it's really, really fascinating. It's, you know, it's a very short little piece that you can find online and worth it if you seek it out. So anyway, that was Gladys Bentley.

• 15:28Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah.

• 15:29Holly Frey?

  Cool blues and jazz singer. I guess some of those songs were, you can find audio recordings of some of her other songs. That's just the only one that there's footage of. But yeah, there are definitely lots of audio recordings and her voice is so good. So good.

• 15:48Speaker 01

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• 16:16Speaker 02

  Snoring, gasping for air during sleep, daytime sleepiness? I'm Shaquille O'Neal and this shouldn't be anybody's experience. Ask your doctor about Zepbound, tazepatide, the first and only FDA approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea in adults with obesity.

• 16:32Speaker 03

  Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve their OSA. Zepbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15-milligram injection. Zepbound contains trisepotide and should not be used with other trisepotide-containing products or any GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepbound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens, or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic

• 17:17Speaker 03

  reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia, if you're nursing, pregnant, plant-to-be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zepbound with a sulphonal urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems.

• 17:39Speaker 02

  Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-5979, or visit zepbound.lily.com.

• 17:46Speaker 07

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• 18:40Holly Frey?

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• 19:25Holly Frey?

  Tune in to find out. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 19:41Holly Frey?

  We talked about hypnotism and James Braid this week.

• 19:45Tracy V. Wilson?

  We did.

• 19:46Holly Frey?

  As I was telling Tracy before we started recording, this almost became a two parter because I really like getting into the minutia of his life in particular. But I, that would have been very janky for our schedule to have a two parter when we're recording today.

• 20:02Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah, because I had already written a two parter and it was not going to flow correctly if we had another one. So sorry, I stepped on.

• 20:11Holly Frey?

  No, you didn't at all. Um, you were ahead of me in getting stuff done. So you have every right. Uh, yeah, we try to keep two parters in the same week. And this one is going to have to go on a Monday when we already have a Wednesday aligned. So we were like, well, that won't work, which is fine. And really, it probably made it better because I would have gone down weird paths that I could talk about now. One story that I was fascinated by, and also a little, listen, if you're squeamish, this may or may not bother you. I actually found it kind of funny.

• 20:45Tracy V. Wilson?

  Okay.

• 20:45Holly Frey?

  Because it's so, um, here's what it's like to be a surgeon in a mining town.

• 20:51Tracy V. Wilson?

  Oh.

• 20:51Holly Frey?

  Kind of story. So we've mentioned that one of the things he treated on a few occasions when he was at Lead Hill was like severed fingers.

• 20:59Tracy V. Wilson?

  Mm hmm.

• 21:00Holly Frey?

  And there was one story that he.

• 21:04Holly Frey?

  Somebody had come to him and said, like, hey, I have cut off the tip of my finger and it's bleeding. And he's like, well, did you pick up the tip of the finger? And he was like, no. And like, they literally went out and found it in the dirt and then had to sterilize it and put it on. And I'm just like, and apparently that went very well. And he was successful and the man recovered just fine. But I'm just like, holy Moses, holy Moses. There were also a couple of moments in his biography and little minutia type stories that reminded me, they kind of accidentally referenced literature. And one of them made me go, did that author read about this? Or was this common

• 21:48Holly Frey?

  practice? Which is, we talked a little bit about how even, you know, during his surgeries, his whole thing was like, don't overtax the patient that will actually damage their recovery.

• 22:01Tracy V. Wilson?

  Sure.

• 22:02Holly Frey?

  And because he came to be so respected, a lot of other surgeons and even physicians would come to him and get his opinion. And there was one case where somebody came to him to talk to him about a patient who was this woman that kind of had a lot of kind of nebulous maladies, right? Like, and they weren't chalked up to like, oh, nervous disposition, which is what a lot of legitimate issues often got umbrellaed under. But it seemed like there was a really earnest desire to, you know, help her through whatever was going on. And as he, as Bray kind of heard the details of the case, he kind of took a step

• 22:43Holly Frey?

  back and said, you're giving this poor person an awful lot of medication, like, kind of hoping that it's gonna work, when maybe it won't. And so he actually was one of those people that was like, if she thinks she needs medication, what if we give her bread pills? Like, we basically mashed down bread to look like pills. And that way, she still has the placebo effect of thinking she did it. This is something that they do in Eight Cousins by Luisa May Alcott. And I was like,

• 23:13Tracy V. Wilson?

  Really?

• 23:14Holly Frey?

  Did she read about this? Or was this something that other doctors did sometimes? Cause Uncle, Uncle Alec in that book, Alec or Alex, um, does that at one point where he makes little bread pills for somebody. Cause he similarly is like, you don't need to be hypermedicated all the time.

• 23:33Tracy V. Wilson?

  Right, right.

• 23:33Holly Frey?

  For everything, when doctors are just playing guesswork about it. But so many people at that point, you know, often, and even today, I mean, there are so many people who are like, I think I need medication for this. And it's like, well, maybe, but I, it reminded me of that. The other thing that was interesting to me in the, I, I wanted to make sure I understood like exactly how clubfoot happens and what the actual issue is. And I ended up down a weird Reddit rabbit hole.

• 24:07Tracy V. Wilson?

  Okay.

• 24:08Holly Frey?

  Because, so we recently discussed Gustave LeBert and Madame Bovary.

• 24:14Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah.

• 24:14Holly Frey?

  Book I love. There is in that book, an instance where a young man who was like an adult with clubfoot is operated on by Emma Bovary's husband, Charles. And his leg is amputated and it goes horribly and his quality of life suffers. And I happened upon while I was looking for, cause I had that moment of like, Charles did do a clubfoot thing in Madame Bovary and I searched that online and I find this and it was interesting. And if any of these people that participated in this thread hear this, I mean, I hope they do, cause they may understand the nuance of it. Cause they're all like, Charles is an idiot.

• 24:57Holly Frey?

  Because one of them looked up how clubfoot is treated. And they were like, that's not how you treat clubfoot. And I'm like, okay, but at the time when the Bovaries were existing, that was how it was treated. They were just before like these more nuanced surgeries started to come into play. It just made me laugh. I was like, is everything in James Brad's story gonna be related to a piece of literature that I love? Maybe, maybe. But I, I'm gonna use Madame Bovary as a jumping off point because, you know, we talked in our Emile Couet episode about like him also being like,

• 25:37Holly Frey?

  Kind of of of uh once removed generationally in terms of exposure to the teachings of mesmerism. Like stepping even further away from it. And him being like, no, you actually don't even need hypnotism to to affect change in your life on a subconscious level. But I did think it was funny because there is a long chain of like French people who, you know, were into mesmerism, et cetera. Because of course it came about in France initially. But there was one thing I read in talking that was talking about James Braid and like particularly LaFontaine coming to England. And there being not just a sense that mesmerism was hooey,

• 26:21Holly Frey?

  but also that you couldn't particularly trust French mesmerists.

• 26:26Tracy V. Wilson?

  In particular, French.

• 26:29Holly Frey?

  Yeah, because it was like, oh, there are so many French mesmerists and they're all just, they're all just selling flim flam, which I just thought was really, really funny. I don't know, I just loved it.

• 26:42Speaker 01

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• 27:10Speaker 02

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• 27:26Speaker 03

  Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve their OSA. Zepbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram injection. Zepbound contains Trisepotide and should not be used with other Trisepitides. ...containing products or any GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepbound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens, or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction.

• 28:11Speaker 03

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• 28:33Speaker 02

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• 28:40Speaker 07

  This stress check, aka friendly reminder that your hobbies matter, is brought to you by State Farm, because you deserve to lose yourself in the stuff that brings you joy. Here's mine: painting my tabletop battle miniatures. Yeah, seriously. After a long day, I grab a brush, pop in some music, and just get into it. And there's no wrong way to do it. It helps me clear my head, slow down, and just breathe. But it works. Big stress, mini warriors, total reset. No pressure, just paint, creativity, and a little reminder of what makes me happy. Some people bake, some people garden. Me, I paint warriors with interesting tech. And guess what? It works. You don't have to be good at your hobby, you just have to enjoy it.

• 29:25Speaker 07

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• 29:34Holly Frey?

  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. Tune in for season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio production in partnership with Argenx. Hosted by public health and policy expert Dr. Martine Hackett, Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition pushes the conversation within the rare Disease community forward, featuring guests living with MG, CIDP, myositis, SMA, and other rare autoimmune conditions. Each episode explores hope, progress, and connection. How does research create new opportunities? How do shared experiences help light the way forward? How do we best show up for each other?

• 30:18Holly Frey?

  Tune in to find out. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 30:35Holly Frey?

  I also, I mentioned in the course of the episode, but I wanted to mention it again because I really, I have an odd affinity for James Braid after doing the research on him. That, that obituary that does mention like, no, everybody called him doctor because he took care of his entire community. They went to him for things that normally you would see a physician and not a surgeon for, but like they trusted his judgment so much. And he was so careful to not ever like overstep his own knowledge that they knew, like if he, if he said, I don't know what to do with this. Let's take you to a doctor. They would do it. But if he said, I understand what's going on here. I think I can help. They were happy to do whatever he said.

• 31:20Holly Frey?

  And I just, it speaks volumes about him as a person. And again, like post Emil Coe, where I also wanted somebody who was like actually fairly noble in their desires to help people and not trying to be a weasel. Yeah. This is my series on non-weasels in medicine. And like non-grifter complimentary medicine. Yeah, absolutely not. Yeah, he wasn't like trying to make any money off of explaining hypnotism other than, you know, book sales or whatever. But even so, he, he would routinely just write into the paper and explain things like in letters to the editor of like, hey, you know, the science that you're talking about here, you don't have it quite right.

• 32:05Holly Frey?

  Here's, here's what's really going on. And here are the other writers who have discussed this, like literally just writing essentially like. You know, a paper with citations as part of his letters to the editor.

• 32:17Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah.

• 32:18Holly Frey?

  Which is just free knowledge he's giving away, which I love.

• 32:21Tracy V. Wilson?

  I also just like, I, I like that you've done, I think, two episodes in a row, I guess, about somebody who was trying to help people, trying to help them recover, trying to help make their lives better, but without like undermining and casting doubt on medical science. Which I think is like

• 32:43Holly Frey?

  Yeah.

• 32:43Tracy V. Wilson?

  Really important because it's true that there are things that medicine doesn't understand. And there are a lot of people who in one way or another are either left behind by or excluded from the world of medicine.

• 33:00Holly Frey?

  Yeah.

• 33:01Tracy V. Wilson?

  And there are other things that can help make people's lives better. But like, we're living in a time where there's just so much intentional sowing doubt of, about medicine in a way that is harming people. But I like that we got two in a row, kind of people that I would put in the umbrella of alternative practitioners who were not doing that.

• 33:28Holly Frey?

  Yeah, although he was also continuing like his surgical practice throughout all of this. He just saw hypnotism as another tool that you could potentially use.

• 33:37Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah.

• 33:38Holly Frey?

  To help people, like it's, it's a thing in the toolbox, but it's not the only thing. Which I just thought was great. I also loved his whole idea of like, you can only do this to someone with their consent. This isn't. Which I think speaks a lot to who he was as a medical practitioner. You know what I mean? He wasn't, there's, you, you hear so many instances of very kind of pompous.

• 34:04Holly Frey?

  Doctors or surgeons throughout history, and I know it still happens today, who are just like, you don't know, I know, just listen to me, which like, they might know, but like, it goes miles further to explain to somebody what everything that's going on and what's gonna happen to them, rather than just kind of treating them like a problem to be solved.

• 34:25Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah.

• 34:26Holly Frey?

  And recognizing their own agency and the healing process. Like to me, I mean, that goes back to like his whole thing of like, I don't need my knife in someone's eye more than 30 seconds. Like, we're in, we're out, we're

• 34:36Tracy V. Wilson?

  Gotta be done.

• 34:37Holly Frey?

  gonna fix this. I don't, I don't wanna make their lives harder ever. Like, oh, that's such a good ethos.

• 34:45Holly Frey?

  He's, he's not trying to do exploratory anything. He's literally like, let's identify the problem.

• 34:49Tracy V. Wilson?

  Fix it and get out.

• 34:50Holly Frey?

  Great.

• 34:51Tracy V. Wilson?

  Out as fast as possible.

• 34:52Holly Frey?

  How can I make you heal as best you possibly can?

• 34:55Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah.

• 34:55Holly Frey?

  Which is great. Just great. I love it. I like you, James Braid.

• 35:01Holly Frey?

  Check. Two non jerks in a row for me.

• 35:03Tracy V. Wilson?

  Hooray.

• 35:04Holly Frey?

  I feel like I have to find somebody really terrible in the not too distant future.

• 35:08Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah.

• 35:09Holly Frey?

  We'll see what happens. I actually do have somebody kind of terrible coming up, I think. But not in a, not in a medical way.

• 35:17Tracy V. Wilson?

  I know I've already said recently that Unearthed was coming soon. It is coming soon. It's the next thing I'm working on, but that still means it'll be a little bit before it actually comes out.

• 35:27Holly Frey?

  It is.

• 35:34Holly Frey?

  Unearthed. I don't know. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just being weird. If you have weekend coming up that involves time off, which we all need desperately, I hope that you get to do something fun and restorative that prioritizes your desires and what will make you feel the best. And also just that you get time to do whatever it is that, that delights you. I hope we all find joy in whatever way we can every single day, so long it is, it is not hampering anyone else's joy. If you do have to work or you have other responsibilities, maybe you're running family members around and doing stuff, or gotta take cats to the vet, which involves wrangling them into a carrier and a lot of stress

• 36:18Holly Frey?

  and possibly pee. I don't have any experience with that recently.

• 36:25Holly Frey?

  I hope even if you have a lot of responsibilities that may or may not go smoothly, that you still have as good a few days as possible coming up. Uh, we will be right back here on Monday with something brand new. Tomorrow, you can also check out a classic episode.

• 36:44Tracy V. Wilson?

  Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 36:59Speaker 02

  Snoring, gasping for air during sleep, daytime sleepiness? I'm Shaquille O'Neal, and this shouldn't be anybody's experience. Ask your doctor about Zepbound Trisepotide, the first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea in adults with obesity.

• 37:15Speaker 03

  Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve their OSA. Zepbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15-milligram injection. Zepbound contains trisepotide and should not be used with other trisepotide-containing products or any GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepbound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens, or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction.

• 38:00Speaker 03

  Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia, if you're nursing, pregnant, plant-to-be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zepbound with a sulphonal urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems.

• 38:22Speaker 02

  Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-5979, or visit zepbound.lily.com.

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