Poor Historians Podcast

08/01/2025

If you're looking to send the show a message, we'll no longer be monitoring our Meta accounts. Feel free to reach out to Dr. Max on BlueSky for any questions, concerns, or airing of grievances about the show.

Your average emergency-trained hospice and palliative medicine doc who's into podcasting (Poor Historians Podcast), medical history, secular humanism, and defending professional wrestling as a legitimate art form.

06/11/2024

The final episode of the Poor Historians Podcast is out in the world as of today. We hope you enjoy this one last topic. It ties many of our prior episodes together and was a good one to go out on.

We're forever grateful to all of our fans who have been the driving force behind the show. Our episodes will remain available for the future generations.

Be sure to listen past the outro to hear a bit of a special behind-the-scenes chat between the co-hosts, reflecting on the many years of work and friendship that went into making this show.

Feel free to follow over on Instagram and Threads if you want to see what he's up to. We'll still be monitoring our social media accounts for the show in case folks want to send us messages in the future.

Much Love,
Dr. Max & The Poor Historians Podcast

27/10/2024

Hello All PHPod Fans,

After much consideration over the prior months, we've decided that the Poor Historians Podcast is coming to an end with our next episode which will be the finale for the show.

Dr. Max who has been doing the editing and producing over the years will be taking time to focus on his medical training and the PHPod co-hosts have decided this would be as good a time as any to wrap the show up on our upcoming Nov 6th episode, Though it will be our last show, we'll look to make it a good one with a little extra special content for our fans.

We'd like to thank all of you fans out there who have taken the time to tell us how much you enjoyed the show, how much we made you laugh, and even how much the podcast meant to you in difficult times. It's been a pleasure to do this show for the past 3+ years and to hear from so many people out there who enjoyed what we did and appreciated our hard work. We're proud of our accomplishments in this creative space and it's been an amazing ride because of all of you.

The show's catalog will remain on all the podcast networks and Dr. Max will monitor the PHPod social media accounts for the foreseeable future. He will also continue to provide an occasional quip over on Threads as if you wish to follow him there.

Though we don't anticipate the show will return, if there are any new creative projects from the PHPod co-hosts in the future, you can expect them to be announced here on these pages.

Once again, many thanks to the PHPod universe.

Our fans are the best!

10/10/2024

We're happy to have special guest on the PHPod to lend her expertise on this topic.

It's surprising to see the Comstock Act of 1873 back in the news in 2024. In this episode we'll talk about Anthony Comstock's crusade against contraception, po*******hy, and women's health during the Gilded Age. This is what happens when a rogue post office administrator lets power go to his head....

Follow us if you're a fan of medical history and have ears. We'll podcast at them.

04/10/2024

This past episode saw an interesting addition to the Poor Historians Podcast Annals of Medical History (our vault of interesting artifacts).

In our episode on the placebo effect, we learned that an early placebo used during the 1700s-1800s was a dose of silver-encrusted bread crumbs. It was prescribed as a purgative but thought to be inert. Hard to say if it did anything, but I would be concerned that this "placebo" might have had negative effects.

We imagine silver bread crumbs were pretty, though, so there's that.

Check out more in our latest episode available on all the podcast places!

26/09/2024

Today's episode is an attempt to look at the history of one of the most misunderstood concepts in medicine: the placebo effect.

To be fair, it's a more complicated phenomenon than some sources might suggest. In this episode we'll talk about the origins of the word, "placebo," the first placebos in existence, and a history of scientific investigation into just what the placebo effect is.

The bottom line is that the placebo effect is a multifaceted, fascinating phenomenon.

We'll try to do our best with it.

Give it a listen! We're on all the podcast places.

19/09/2024

This past episode's entry into the PHPod, as selected by , is the horseblood used to make the mysterious (and ultimately fake) "Substance X" that would later be named Krebiozen. It was a quack cancer treatment that was popularized by a series of poorly conducted studies in the 1950's and 1960's.

Into the medical history vault with this one.

Check out our most recent episode on Krebiozen to learn more about this unfortunate chapter in the history of cancer treatment.

12/09/2024

Today's episode is brought to you courtesy of the newly released book, The Krebiozen Hoax by Matthew C. Ehrlich, an extensively researched account of a fake cancer cure that, much like its creator, seemed to appear out of thin air.

This is the story of Krebiozen, a medication said to have been developed by a secret process involving stimulation of horse immune systems and isolating a mysterious substance from their bloodstreams.

By the end of its 22 year run, Krebiozen left many patients without answers and a famous scientist's reputation in tatters, all while the medication's creator sought to flee the country.

Check this one out!

03/09/2024

We're adding a rotten sardine and thumbtack sandwich to our show's Annals of Medical History.

In the 1920's, this artisanal sandwich idea was one of the many ways that a group of NYC bar patrons used trying to kill "Durable" Mike Malloy, an Irish immigrant who survived numerous poisonings and traumas in an effort to collect on his life insurance policy. They hoped that a sandwich of rotten sardines and thumbtacks would do the trick.

It did not, so we're putting it in our show's archive of medical history artifacts. I'm sure it'll keep well in there.

29/08/2024

This episode is a tour of toxicology, trauma, environmental hazards, and drives home the point that you should pick your friends carefully.

Mike Malloy was also known as "Irish Rasputin" because he managed to survive a series of murder attempts. We'll piece together this story with various medical explanations as to how Mike Malloy managed to escape death, so many times.

18/08/2024

I don't always run into fans of the show, but when I do, they're rad AF.

Was awesome to meet .fontaine and enjoy the pit show last night .

Dr. Max recommends the fans check out their music and catch a show while they're on tour. It'll be good for your health.

What a great f***ing night.