Sexual performance, in particular impotence, is something that’s plagued chaps since they first crawled out of the swamp, rose up onto our hind legs, looked down, and bellowed WHY WON’T YOU WORK YOU BASTARD!
If there’s one thing you can rely on history to provide, it’s infinite examples of how men across the ages have laboured to enhance, increase, or at the very least enable performance…
Erectile dysfunction shows up in Egyptian tombs, Greek cup paintings, and even the Old Testament, with no limit to the wacky treatments they dreamed up to treat it. Not least, drinking the semen of hawks and eagles (how the hell do you get that stuff?).
On this very show, we’ve talked about some of these sophisticated, not-exactly-scientifically sound performance enhancers over the years from special elixirs to penile prostheses to testicle grafts. And of course, more mechanical means have also been tried for centuries.
But today’s fix is all in the realm of chemical intervention and actual science! There’s a first time for everything, huh?
1983 was the year that real science came to the fore, but not quite in the way we’ve come to expect. Renowned physiologist Sir Giles Skey Brindley made an impractical yet convincing discovery involving phentolamine injections and lacking animal models, he used himself as a guinea pig. Dressed in a loose tracksuit and with some prior preparatory injections, Brindley presented his findings in what has now come to be known as the infamous Brindley lecture, aka how NOT to communicate science.
Luckily, just 6 years after this exceptional performance the main scientific surprise discovery of today’s tale arises…
British Pfizer scientists Peter Dunn and Albert Wood had been researching a drug that they hoped would be good for treating high blood pressure, imaginatively calling it UK-92480. Early trials indicated little hope for its use as a heart disease treatment, nevertheless, a British patent was filed for sildenafil citrate, AKA Viagra, as a heart medication. Of course, we all know what viagra became famous for.
But Viagra’s erective effects were most emphatically a happy accident, and if it hadn’t been for an especially observant nurse, it may never have thrust its way into the spotlight.
previous eps mentioned:
SOURCES:
Klotz, L, How (not) to communicate new scientific information: A memoir of the famous Brindley lecture - December 2005BJU International 96(7):956-7
DOI:10.1111/j.1464-410X.2005.05797.x
Revatio vs. Viagra: What's the Difference?
From Viagra to Valium, the drugs that were discovered by accident. By James Rudd TueLaurence Klotz, MD, FRCSC - Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Viagra: The little blue pill that could - Jacque Wilson, CNN
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Will 00:00
We all know some of this story, you know, a famous pill, problem solved. And a billion jokes, but the actual story well, it's actually a story of happy accidents. Good observation, and some of the highest impact use of props in science communication I've ever heard. Enjoy
Rod 00:25
it's fair to say this is very episode. The history of science is peppered with surprises and advances based on happy accidents. Cool, cool. You know this?
Will 00:39
Yes, I do. Anyone who falls over cracks his head on the toilet bowl
Rod 00:43
boom, light is faster than sound invents crisper? Yep. Something he did on the toilet. I think that's how it happened. It is at a time machine. That's one of my examples. Well, I'll take that one out. So I'll give you a few examples. One you've everyone's heard 1928 Alexander Fleming unintentionally leaves a Petri dish with stuff like corpus aureus growing. He leaves it open on a windowsill goes on holiday. Comes back. There's a bunch of fungus, the mould stuff that's grown on it and it's killed the bacteria and he's going Holy shit. Boom, antibiotics. genius move. Yep. solves a lot of people completely accidental serendipitous. happy accident. Percy LeBaron Spencer. Okay, I know what a name
Will 01:23
Le Baron as a middle name. Yeah. I mean, I may lose a family name or something.
Rod 01:28
It was a car so we can use an iPhone. He was working on magnetrons which are high powered vacuum tubes that generate shortwave radios. Okay, I can't read your way but I just feel like the the accidents around magnetrons doesn't sound good, does it?
Will 01:45
I don't think you'd leave your magnetron on your windowsill for the weekend and go camping. Oh, no.
Rod 01:49
But if you have an accident on a magnetron you become a superhero. Yeah, I feel like it's gonna happen. No. So he was tinkering with it. And he noticed the chocolate bar in his pocket had melted. Boom, microwaves. That's how he found a microwave and turn into an oven. His chocolate bar mill.
Will 02:02
Are you serious? That is awesome. I don't know if I've told you this before, but one of my family's claims to fame is that my granddad? He was working on radar during the Second World War. The character in mesh. No, not the character in masks the thing that used to spot planes and stuff. First CSIRO, or whatever the version of it was before, but he reckons he was the first person to eat a meat pie heated up by microwave for the service. Yeah. Which which is not a good thing. Because a meat pie heated up by microwave is an error is an error but he does believe
Rod 02:35
I'm gonna go on a limb to never to do this. Out on a Limb. hard to prove.
Will 02:39
Yes, yes, it is hard to prove but I imagine there weren't that many people working with my nose and then that many people that were thinking okay, meat pie this is this gonna do maybe they had heard the story about the chocolate bar.
Rod 02:51
Let me throw it I'm not going to melt that. I'm gonna eat a pie. Wilson Greatbatch. I know. Not a good batch. Greatbatch. That his whole last name. Yeah, he wasn't great. That's right. Batch. No, Wilson. Greatbatch one word great. So he was trying to build a device to record heartbeats in 1956. And he put the wrong resistor into his prototype. And it ended up emitting a regular pulse. And it turned out basically mimic a nice heartbeat. Boom implantable pacemaker
Will 03:22
that is so bizarre that he didn't deliberately try to make it I can understand the idea of deliberately making a pacemaker you could say okay, there's a thing we need to do.
Rod 03:33
Let's record it or wait a minute or make it do something. Okay. That's awesome. Russian chemist Constantin Fahlberg 1878 He was analysing the chemical compounds in coal tar. Okay, you know how to do that they did back then. Yeah. And then for reason I really cannot explain he accidentally is they put it tasted some of the chemicals. Coal tar.
Will 03:57
Hmm. You know, though, you know, that. Chemists tasting things is a lot more common in science history than it might be. And I actually suspect it may be a little bit more common chemists. You can tell us a little bit more common today than you might expect.
Rod 04:13
I expected it to be pretty much zero so yes. And he went Jesus tastes really sweet. That's all anyway, boom. saccharin. From coal tar. Yeah. Are experiments their own analysis. Yeah. Okay. So there's a lot of them.
Will 04:29
sells it though. I mean, it doesn't if you were to go okay, sugar. You know, that's the one that comes from plants. What do we know saccharin? sacrifi. It's the one that comes from coal tar
Rod 04:38
Not plants. What's not like a plant?
Will 04:41
Put some coal tar essence in your coffee. Yeah. That's true, though. It's weird that they didn't brand it that way. Isn't it? coal tar sweet.
Rod 04:49
Would you like sugar or near?
Will 04:52
billion year old sludge?
Rod 04:54
Yeah, we had some slight extracted and distilled sludge. But look, today I'm going to talk about a more recent happy accident. And it led to an unexpected, a very large science based advancement. But before I get to that on the way there's a bonus as an unexpected prelude to the boom Oh, yeah. And it took the form of a remarkably remarkably unexpected presentation at the 1983 Urodynamics Society conference in Las Vegas.
Will 05:38
Welcome to The Wholesome Show the podcast that gets turgid around the whole of science.
Rod 05:45
Are we happy? No. I don't want you happy.
Will 05:48
The Wholsome Show is me Will Grant
Rod 05:50
And me Roderick Gryphon Lamberts no to drugs from me because I'm not a monster. What do you say such dirty things?
Will 05:59
I'm still gonna still stuck on coal tar boy, I'm still stuck that that's what happened.
Rod 06:04
I don't want to ruin it for you. He doesn't feature again.
Will 06:06
I wasn't expecting that. But I'm still very happy with that.
Rod 06:09
Sexual Performance.
Will 06:10
Yes, indeed, it is a thing.
Rod 06:12
And in particular impotence.
Will 06:13
Indeed, it also is the thing
Rod 06:15
It's something that's plagued us chaps, since we basically crawled out of the swamp got onto our hind legs looked down and said, Why don't you work? We're talking to
Will 06:23
Okay. Okay. Oh, look, sexual performance can be a thing. For all genders. The word impotence just means just means the ones with penis, doesn't it?
Rod 06:31
I believe so. Okay, because the hardness factor is not the same.
Will 06:35
No, but there is sexual performance, etc.
Rod 06:38
Nope. Ladies are always good. So on this show, we talked about many of these sophisticated scientifically sound and you know, performance enhances like we talked about Charles Edouard Brown-Séquard’s Special's Elixir. Oh, yes. That was the ground up puppies. That was wonderful. Yeah. You name it. He was into all that penile extensions, transplants prostheses and talked about these all manner of aphrodisiacs. And we even Of course, infamously, you spoke to me about testicle graft from animals like monkey balls, etc. Indeed, I did. Serge Samuel Abramovich Voronoff . But the beauty of history is, is one thing you can rely on it to provide his infinity more examples of ways in which people or gentleman have tried to increase or at least even just enhance their performance.
Will 07:23
It's almost like it's a theme. Maybe there's a pattern here. I don't know what to do. I couldn't know what it is. I couldn't know what it is. But there's some sort of pattern of guys and wanting to do something with the downstairs
Rod 07:37
and not to something, something. Want to do something here. So I came across, you probably read this article, journal article, real article, erectile dysfunction, a review of historical treatments with a focus on the development of the inflatable penile prosthesis. So I'm not going to talk about the inflatable penile prosthesis, because I have ways back I do remember, but this one has a nice little summary of some of the other methods. That's good way to warm us up. Erectile dysfunction, it's been described since the beginning of written history, which I did not
Will 08:08
first words, the first we invented writing, I thought, Let's do history. And let's do history uniform when you couldn't get a bonus.
Rod 08:15
So there was one of the little pointers like that and right next to it slightly down and then slightly down, and then a whole lot of them facing downwards. Yeah, that was the first uniform sentence. And in sound goes up one.
Will 08:26
I don't have like an Assyrian name that I could use here. I don't know what Oh, my God. Fair enough. Fair enough. Xerxes or something like that? Zierikzee all the time as axes could not do the deed. Really? Yeah, that's what it is. I didn't know that. Well, the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Rod 08:41
That's my favourite epic and Star Wars. So there are reports on Egyptian tombs, Greek Cups have paintings of it somehow.
Will 08:51
Are they talking about like its problem? Or are they laughing at it? Because I wouldn't be surprised if there's a fair bit of literature. It can be both history can be unkind really can not to the victors. No, not to the victors. And that's the point. But it can be unkind and let's assume that those those with the impotence are not considering themselves the victors
Rod 09:10
No. Well, to be fair, one of the sources, the Old Testament, I'm guessing it was maybe it was kind because the better to not be hard in the eyes of God. Unless it's to have a baby with someone. You're married. I think God God got into it. I think God was in favour of erections. rageous flagpole
Will 09:27
I sure if it if it is done within the bounds that God has set, which is weird. It's weird. It's weird that you would go okay, here's this. Here's, here's some fun toys you can play with.
Rod 09:35
Yep. And so this erectile dysfunction description goes on to say, look, it affects men of all races and across all social classes. So it's been around a week.
Will 09:42
Where was this one again?
Rod 09:43
This was in the journal article. Erectile dysfunction.
Will 09:46
I thought this is back in time.
Rod 09:47
I about to Okay. So here's some of the techniques that we've I don't think ever spoken about on our shows. So let's let's fix that. Some of them like this eighth century, men of ancient Roman Greece would Were talismans of roosters and goat genitalia. This is my chicken duck yeah exact now I'm performing.
Will 10:06
Yes, that's how you know partners of these guys are male or female like you didn't even really super attracted with someone with a chicken dick around around the neck I feel like I'm not super
Rod 10:22
what else are they wearing?
Will 10:23
But I don't think it's my different buy that could be I don't think
Rod 10:29
what if he's dressed you know like outrageously huge colour and strange out covered in peacock plumes and stuff you're not even seeing the chicken
Will 10:35
look okay, it's even themed there. Yeah, no dinner chicken deck or then it would stand a tuxedo and a chicken deck or tiger and chicken deck. Yeah, I feel like I'm not loving it G string Chicken Do I have no idea what a chicken deck looks like?
Rod 10:49
I don't I don't like
Will 10:50
clackers on both sides.
Rod 10:51
I thought but not according to the go kart Clocker and a boy cloaca Yeah, the 13th century fryer. Albertus Magnus. He suggested you should eat roasted wolf penis. Roasted so freaking crooked.
Will 11:11
I love recipe. I have a recipe. That's
Rod 11:13
like one day first. Catch a wolf. Yep. Then grab its doodle. chop that off.
Will 11:21
I just there's a lot of wolf farms around.
Rod 11:24
No, no a lot of wolf recipes. I don't think either.
Will 11:27
There is an angle for podcast to look at Wolf recipes. Wolf recipes. I doubted a delicious, I mean created a carnival. No matter what
Rod 11:36
that's been my experience. The Romans would also consume the genitalia of animals with high libidos like rabbits, and, and possibly my favourite drink of the semen of hawks and eagles. Here's my question. Here's my question. How the fuck do you get that? I'm gonna beat off an eagle.
Will 11:54
You don't necessarily I assume you caught it. You can probably kill it and probably
Rod 11:59
find it's tiny Eagle nuts.
Will 12:01
Did they must be there somewhere surely, again in the Cloaca
Rod 12:05
Oh no, Eagles have raging talent like members. There's no question.
Will 12:10
Oh, wow.
Rod 12:10
Yeah, getting it doesn't seem great. Man. Imagine the fight if you were trying to do it while there's claws and wings and scratching and beaks. Dude, I thought you might enjoy this.
Will 12:21
You know that you know that there is a terrible history of of scientists whose part of their job is to whack off animals whack off animals. Terrible slash someone's got to do it.
Rod 12:31
Not only do I know so once years ago, I was around and having dinner to meet us as a civilised child. No, no, no, no, thank you. No, it's all fine. It's all fine. I don't want to know childhood, childhood dinner time. And there's a documentary on TV. And we're sitting around the kids I don't know seven and five or Battenburg gets gets down with not quite but sort of it was very civilised, you know, Primetime documentary about a woman who walks right house. And I'm looking at it going this is amazing. And they watch it she puts the God when she sticks her hand and quite carefully through the stockade and makes the move you'd expect. And eventually the runner goes. So by the end of the 18th century, impotence was thought to be as we know, again, from other episodes, consequence of mass starvation or you know, voluntarily discharging.
Will 13:16
Exactly. The it'll go away if you use it. Yeah. Yeah. So don't use it. Don't use it. Yeah, that would be Keep it. Keep it. You get like five erections in your life. Yeah, that's it, you're allowed
Rod 13:27
to limited heartbeats. limited number of months. That's a good theory. Yeah. And so there are various ways described and trial to stop that happening. But in the late into the 19th century, they realised testosterone had a role, which is nice. Okay. And so that's cool. And it led eventually to the synthesis of testosterone. But it also led to things like grafting other animals nuts into bowls. So you'd be shocked to hear none of these things really work. I know you wouldn't, but people at home if you haven't listened to all our other episodes on such stuff. So of course, there are more mechanical means as well. But this is not what we're about here. The first or the big boom for this episode is all in the realm of chemical interventions, and actual real legit science. I'm actually gonna talk about legit science.
Will 14:10
That's good. That's what that come here for.
Rod 14:12
I know, and it's just unusual. So it's a very me episode and a very not me episode. So we fast forward to 1983 which always did legit sois legit science. 1983 and I mentioned this before the urodynamic Society conference in Las Vegas, it's in full swing. What a urodynamics. It's about how urine moves.
Will 14:31
Oh, it's like Euro don't like as European dynamics conference.
Rod 14:35
It's about Alright, alright, the way we areas, etc. Fair enough. The renowned physiologist Sir Giles Brindley was about to present his work, its pioneering work and for British scientists the name sir Giles Joel, his middle name is like skey as well as skey. So before '83 The actual legit medical sibling hood was pretty much convinced on the whole that erectile dysfunction was about the noggin, not the nervous It's certainly involved. The strong leaning was you know, it's about your psychologies. You can't do the thing because you're thinking dumb stuff. So Brindley said, no, no, no, no, no, no. What I propose is you inject phentolamine into the penis. Okay, what is that? It's a drug. Yeah, that allows blood to move into the region. Okay, the basic mechanism was it relaxes smooth muscles, like you find in the blood vessels, the intestines this. Okay. And the union? Yes. So allows the blood to flow in. Yeah, so erectile problems usually are because for some reason, the blood isn't allowed to flow into the core Porter cavernosa. There are a couple of chambers Kevin's basically Yes. The body Kevin's the body Kevin's Well, the dingdong. Kevin's in this instance. So they're restricted. Blood doesn't go in doesn't go up. But if you relax these muscles, blood can as they put it, surgeon and Up goes the old champ instant, instant erection. Okay, stick it in up it goes very quickly. But there's gonna be downsides to this, isn't it? Hell no. Well, you got to inject into the base of your penis. Got him in the mood Hang on, for example, so it's fair to say interesting. His session was very high. People were like, Yep, I want to hear about this. And look, even though it's a critical issue for many, many people. It was still very fledgling stuff. So of course Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. So he comes out Prelude surprise, Brinkley's lecture.
Will 16:28
Just pause for a second then just today, what have we got the year boy, Yeah bouy non-alcoholic XPA This Is Us being very, very sensible.
Rod 16:37
Well, we are recording rather early in the day. Well, so this is us pretending we're drinking but not really. But it's some It tastes kind of like beer.
Will 16:45
I'm enjoying this more and more. Like, I started and I thought oh, that's nice. But now I'm feeling this. This is quite nice.
Rod 16:52
The opening taste is a surprise because you expect that hit of 7.2% alcohol that we normally drink. But now Yeah, I agree with you. So the best accounts of this come from a number of sources of electro itself, but pretty much all of them extensively, quote this one guy. He's a mega qualified and experienced Canadian neurologist called Lawrence clots. So Klotz was an eyewitness to the presentation. And he was moved
Will 17:17
in the audience. Yeah. Why do we call them eyewitness because of the report's audience member, not an eyewitness.
Rod 17:26
I think you might come around to eyewitnesses. Maybe? So he was so moved in 2005. So 20 years later, he published in the British Journal of Urology, I think it's a British Journal International, how not to communicate new scientific information. Okay. Meanwhile, I have the famous Brinkley lecture.
Will 17:44
Okay. Oh, no,
Rod 17:46
no, no, no, no, it's great. This is great. This is this science communication I've ever heard or seen. Sadly, there's no video. So this is quite a lot of this is basically paraphrasing or actually directly from clauses account from a couple of sources. About 15 minutes before the lecture clots in a lift heading up to the venue. And a floor up above his, as he puts it, a slight elderly man wearing a blue tracksuit and carrying a small cigar box gets on, you know, standard neurological conference prep. He apparently appeared quite nervous and was shuffling about a lot. He opened the box and I appear quite nervous to do. I don't know why. Because I'm not gonna like what you're gonna tell you love this. Don't trust me. It used to trust me, man. I always make you happy. That's my goal. So he had the box inside. He opens it up in the left, and he starts having a rummage and there are 35 millimetre slides of what they call the micrographs of slides, lame images, photographs, but yeah, you put in the projector. Yeah. Yeah. So clot says I was standing next to him, and could vaguely make out the content of the slides, which appeared to be a series of pictures of penile erections. Okay. I concluded this was indeed Professor Brindley. And on the way to his lecture, although his dressing inappropriately casual, yes, like, because I've got since 1983, I must put your tuxedo on in Vegas baby. Come on. So they get to the lecture theatre, and there are quite a few middle aged neurologists with their partners in as they put it, full evening regalia in the front two rows, so very dressed up. Okay, very dressed up. Unlike Chuck Brindley gets up still in his tracks, so to speak. He relates his hypothesis that you inject vasoactive agents into the base of the penis, and that should cause an erection. Okay, and people go cool. Yeah, yep. Pricer do keep going. Yeah, he said this before. Yep. But brinly says he didn't have any suitable animal models. So he told him that he had to be he'd been using himself as a guinea pig.
Will 19:35
Of course you have. Yeah, of course you have. So clots continues.
Rod 19:39
His slide based talk consists of a large series of photographs of his penis, his own penis in various states of tumescence after the injection with a variety of doses of phentolamine and pepper Vereen, so to similar Drax actors. Check this out. Here's a picture of me
Will 20:00
This is where you get, I get that he couldn't find animal models. I've heard that you can find consenting adults who did that might be test participants that might
Rod 20:09
this is a brave man of science. Did he not have any budget for brave men of science hiring some other volunteers? You seem upset?
Will 20:17
I do. Surely there was some surely there was some students that were like, I'll do that for you.
Rod 20:23
Can I inject this in your deck and take photos of it? I mean, you're a keen student, or
Will 20:32
and there are, there are modern boundaries around what one could ask a student but then you get this path to ethics. And then
Rod 20:39
Oh, that's amazing. I want to be and that's what we want to do. Right. So clots continues after viewing about 30 of the slides, there was no doubt in my mind that at least in Professor grindlays case, this therapy was effective. Okay, so that's good, that's working. Fair enough. But Brindley was worried he was worried that quote, sceptics might wonder whether erotic stimulation had played a role in achieving these results. Not just the injection but maybe other
Will 21:06
Yeah, okay. Things been kissing your your lover or something like that. Yeah. When you are there at the conference,
Rod 21:12
touching yourself furtively when people aren't looking or whatever, whatever floats your boat, other than the chemical base, something other.
Will 21:18
So he's got to rule it out. He's gonna rule that it's gotta roll it up. He's got to put himself in the unhorniest situation in the world.
Rod 21:25
Yeah, which he did. So his case was,
Will 21:29
please tell me this is the scientifically defined and horniest situation possible,
Rod 21:33
kinda I,
Will 21:34
I hope he did the preliminary study to define what would be the unharnessed situation,
Rod 21:39
Well not quite but he did say in his view, this is broadly speaking, No normal person would find the experience of giving a lecture to a large audience to be erotically stimulating, or erection inducing,
Will 21:49
you will be surprised.
Rod 21:50
I was thinking that too. I'm going on and on pretty much intuitive.
Will 21:53
No, don't say that. Don't say that. I'm not saying I'm not saying you or me. I'm just saying, I think there would be people out there that feel certain things about being in front of a crowd in front of the folks.
Rod 22:04
But people basically agree so to use this as his non-erotic scenario, he had injected himself with a pup of her own or para Vinod.
Will 22:12
How long does this take to work? Is this like in seconds to work sort of thing.
Rod 22:16
It seems to be quite quick. I'm guessing a few minutes it wasn't clear, but he'd injected himself in his hotel room before he came down and deliberately wore loose clothing to make it possible to exhibit the result. So he steps around the podium and pulls his pants tied around his junk to demonstrate that he indeed has an erection in this unone scenario. See how we're getting towards I witnessed as one can see, all of you walk around and pull your tracking dacks tight,
Will 22:47
it's not guaranteed. I mean, I know he said he did the injection when we do the injection in front of everyone as well,
Rod 22:53
because that'd be weird. So Brindley was just warming up. Okay, clots continues. At this point, I and I believe everyone else in the room was a Gog. I could scarcely believe what was occurring on stage. But Professor Brindley was not satisfied our plays, plays he looked down sceptically at his pants and shook his head with dismay.
Will 23:17
I'm very close to tapping out on this one.
Rod 23:20
Now, we're nearly done. Unfortunately, says Brindley, this doesn't display the results clearly enough. So he drops his trousers, Jesus Christ, revealing a quote, long, thin, clearly erect penis, there was not a sound in the room. So he's standing there, trackies around his ankles. God, proudly standing to attention to demonstrate scientifically that it worked. Jesus Christ. Brindley was not done. clots again. The mere public showing of his erection from the podium was not enough.
Will 24:00
It is enough. It is enough.
Rod 24:02
Are you a urologist?
Will 24:04
Professor? It is enough. Are you a physiologist? I don't care enough.
Rod 24:09
He paused and seemed upon his next move. What does one do? I'll tell you. Oh, Jesus. Apparently the sense of drama in the room was palpable.
Will 24:21
I know. Everyone's like, well, I need to know his story and I don't want to.
Rod 24:28
So he's sitting there or standing there going now look not enough. So then he says apparently with gravity. I'd like to give some of the audience the opportunity to confirm the degree of tumescence Oh, God. So there's pants around his knees he waddles down the stairs and approaches the urologists and their partners,
Will 24:44
not a dignified walk not wearing pants around your knees is kind of tricky anyway, but down some stairs.
Rod 24:49
Yeah, like hard dig in front of a bunch of urologists and their partners. The quote continues as he approached them erection waggling before him for Five of the women in the front rows threw their arms in the air, seemingly in unison, and screamed. This apparently shocked Brindley, who rapidly pulled up his trousers returned to the podium and terminated the lecture. Ah, so the crowd dispersed as clods puts it in a state of flabbergasted disarray.
Will 25:20
See better than you thought. Right. Okay. Yeah, it could have been worse. I could have it this.
Rod 25:24
Next there's no next. So six months later, his paper comes out cover gnosall Alpha blockade, a new technique for investigating and treating erectile impotence. And the abstract is great. So into the Cerner gnosall injection of the phenoxy albenza. mean, in a dose too small to have significant general effects. Was that the actual science words? Yeah, doesn't matter. But the dose is too small to have general effects on the body, it causes full reactions lasting between half an hour and 30 hours.
Will 25:54
Not good. Nope, not good. I mean, you might, you might have a 30 hour lecture. Like if you just great like Castro, if anything is gonna keep you hard for 30 hours, 30 hours, you know, the hands down lecture, that's the one you want with the waddle. Oh my God,
Rod 26:08
Four potent men got these up to 30 erection? Just just a pause for a second, just a clarification of the scientific terminology here. We do call them. Obviously the opposite of impotent, potent we do go with that in the scientific at least back then. Okay, then the great, potent. I mean, it's there's no value judgement there. No, not at all. No. And also, six of the 11 impotent men had the bonus as well. In the remaining potent men and three of the remaining 11 impotent men, they actually had sexual intercourse for the first time in months or sometimes years while under the drug. Hey, that's great. The abstract concludes the practical implications of this new discovery are discussed. So let's talk about practical implications just for tick. It's pretty serious. You're like, you're about to have 60 go Hold on. I've just got to pull out the syringe jammed into the bottom of my dick. Sure. That to me is not that that's not my idea of foreplay.
Will 26:59
Look, look, look, a solution sometimes.
Rod 27:03
Just the idea, though, I'm not talking about whether I value it. I'm just talking about the idea of sticking a needle in my dick.
Will 27:07
I'm not so troubled. You're a badass. You know, I'm sure there are many who talk about needles like that.
Rod 27:17
I would want to stick one in my own arm better yet, in my smaller arm. And the other practical thing, you know, having a 30 hour hold on. I mean, it might be great for some but I'm thinking on the whole you like
Will 27:29
Saturday, lunchtime is the last thing you do because you gotta get to work. This is your Sunday business, you're in danger.
Rod 27:35
Can you imagine turning up to work? It'll go down in a few hours boys up here. But look, luckily, just six years after this critical Prelude. This sort of semi practical discovery so it did work like it gave non erect people directions. And also possibly the best science communication act in history. Oh, worst, best worst. The main scientific discovery of today's tale, the main sort of unexpected surprise arises. Oh, there's more. Yeah, that was a prelude. Now here's the real surprise ways. Don't worry. It's not as horrifying. It's different than 1989 British fires that scientists had been researching a drug they hoped would be good for treating high blood pressure and angina. Yes, yeah. And you probably know where it's going. They created a drug they originally called UK 92480. That's a cool name isn't it? rolls off the tongue. Early 1990s. A bunch of trials of UK 92480. Offered bugger all hope has heart disease treatment. But the following year Pfizer got the British patent anyway for sildenafil citrate citrate, aka Viagra. Okay, as a heart medication. We of course all know anyone who's been alive ever and a sentient adult knows what Viagra became famous for. Yeah. But it's a record of effects. Basically, we're emphatically happy accident discovering this was a surprise. And if it hadn't been for a specially observant nurse, it might have never happened. Are you serious? Yeah. I'll tell you about that in just a tick. We know about sildenafil, the active ingredient Viagra. And it was originally developed to treat and cardiovascular problems.
Will 29:10
Well I wouldn't say no. I just told you. Yeah. Okay. So now, you know,
Rod 29:15
I didn't remember. It was meant to dilate heart blood vessels by blocking a particular protein, PDE-5, if you're keeping I write that down. You shouldn't I will remember that for all time. It'll be in the show notes. Maybe it won't know. So there's pretty good evidence it was impeding the drug was impeding PDE5 in animal tests in D, which is great indeed. And the animals weren't showing obvious negative side effects. So that's so time for a clinical trial to test it out on the humans 1990s
Will 29:45
So just to clarify here for heart stuff, heart stuff here, no side effects on the animals. Yeah, animals are getting better hearts with this
Rod 29:52
or at least Yes, it was eating the protein. What animals are we looking at here? pheasant pheasants Cassowaries giraffes
Will 30:03
medical tests on Cassowaries I'm just just just want to check. There wasn't any observant animal nurse here that noticed any effects?
Rod 30:12
No, no, no animal nurses. No, no, not gorgeous tiger. keep talking that Oh, you got wolf penis is early 1990s trials are ticking along fine. But the nurse she's working on one of the nurses working on the trials notice something weird when she would check on the men who enrolled. So when they first get the drug, they're lying on their backs. She go out, come back in and weirdly, a disproportionately large number of them had rolled over. Okay, in the interim, because they're getting hard ons and they're embarrassed. Oh, so they're hiding it.
Will 30:44
They're like, oh, excuse me. Yeah. And she went get like, just get a book or something. Oh, put your your meal tray on top or just sit there
Rod 30:51
Go to medical environment, whatever. That's how I treat medical environments. It's all gross. It's just gross. So if she hadn't noticed that they may not have made the connection. Yeah. Wow. So basically, Viagra did dilate many blood vessels, just not the heart.
Will 31:06
How many who is noticing a huge pattern here? Like is it
Rod 31:09
I didn't get the exact numbers but it struck me as being many more than you had. It wasn't like two out of 20 it was lightning. It's nearly all of them. Yeah. Why so many of you decided to roll over and I assume one of them are a bunch of Welsh miners. One of the one of the studies has definitely been Welsh miners, but you can imagine going I got a hard on boil. I feel embarrassed. With this unexpected surprise. We wave bye bye to grindlays pre coital COC injections
Will 31:33
don't need to do that anymore. But we still need to demonstrate it out in public.
Rod 31:37
Well, I assume they got him into demonstrate. I mean, he's the guy obviously
Will 31:41
out of the conference. Friendly, please drop your pair.
Rod 31:44
Welcome back. One thing we can promise your audience he did not inject anything into himself. Um, yeah. So basically, because of this accidental observation, we get the scientific advancement became the little blue pill. So then the hard trials begin. Yeah, so to speak. I hear that. Yeah, I knew that. I had to do it. So there bunch of quotes from an article called The little blue pill and oral history of Viagra. And the great quotes from people inside so we've got a research and development head from Pfizer guy called Ian Osterloh. He said at the time, no one really thought this is fantastic. This is great news. We're really onto something here. We must switch the direction of the programme though. Like I didn't
Will 32:23
They're still thinking side effects. Okay. Yeah. hard problems, but side effects or actions. Just be wary.
Rod 32:30
Yeah, be careful. You might get a better partner. Don't just a researcher, Pfizer research and development guy, David McGivney. I remember being personally sceptical about the side effect. Okay, so he's like, really? So David Brown of Pfizer chemists says, look, it was literally the day after we got results from miners in Wales. I went into McGivney, the Pfizer r&d guy and said, I need 150,000 pounds to do an impotent study. And we give me said no,
Will 33:00
surely Big Pharma is like we have all of that money. It's a cash.
Rod 33:03
Yeah. But it's interesting. It gives you an idea of how people were thinking at the time is like, what the fuck is the point of that? Yeah. Okay. So brown shuts the office door and says, I'm not leaving here until they give me the money. And he reckons if it had been anyone else doing this, he was probably going to get fired. So it gets the money. Okay. And he does new trials to start some in 1993. And they go through England, France, Norway, Sweden and beyond. So McGivney continues, the study was designed to use soft pornography or maybe even harder pornography, which wasn't really allowed in the UK at the time.
Will 33:32
Okay. Yeah. Because it was, you know, I thought we'd be testing this without that.
Rod 33:36
Well, no, because Viagra unlike the other drugs,
Will 33:39
Professor Brindley has shown you need to make the most unhealthy situation possible and then test it.
Rod 33:46
Well, critical difference between the injected stuff and Viagra is Viagra still requires stimulation. Well, alright, so is injected stuff is like flick the switch to this is
Will 33:55
like an eight vs. does it all for you?
Rod 33:57
Yeah. But so well spotted..
Will 34:00
I just I'm just you have a scientific mindset. Just checking for your methods. Yeah.
Rod 34:04
Yeah, they need a home office approval for the pictures, which will be a fun application on my because we're printing it. And brown brown, one of the researchers says I looked, they fitted all the men in the study with what they call the Regie scan, which you can imagine what it does. And why do miniapp on that one day because it's fun. At the end of the week, we had to get the drugs back from them and anything that wasn't used. And a bunch of them said no, we're not we're not giving it back. I like this stuff. We're keeping this fair enough. I didn't say well, I was like, dude, dude,
Will 34:32
I don't know if at the end of a medical trial, people should be allowed to keep the leftovers. I don't think that's sensible policy.
Rod 34:39
No, I agree. But I can imagine there's a lot of sort of bro on bro understanding going on. That's my guess. So how was it received? Like first up the name. It turns out the name they had a name Viagra but didn't have a product for it. So that name had been flying around Pfizer for ages and I went missing the one because it's like vigour and Niagra. It's like toughen strong, and
Will 34:57
I get that so they've just got a list of Good night. Yeah apparently the medicine yeah
Rod 35:03
yeah brainstem Viagra what are we use it for?
Will 35:07
I have looked into medical names shockingly boring. I don't know it'd be something cooler than that but Viagra yeah okay, but that's good. That's good that was flooding around. I get the people are like I want to have a car after this. Like the LeBaron rather medication.
Rod 35:23
LeBaron for I don't know very mild skin rashes. Yeah, no, take some LeBaron Oh, it seems to have gone. I could barely tell if it was there in the first place. But now it seems to
Will 35:33
be a mild skin rash. Something libera. No LeBaron is something that's that's like a bad skill regions of Grandia. You get the LuBaron.
Rod 35:41
topical application delusions of grandeur, calm. OB PseudoBaron. So before Viagra as we know the options were injections or my other favourite putting gel suppositories in the urethra.
Will 35:51
Hmm. Look, again, there would be there would be folks that
Rod 35:56
There'd be some, but as a whole, I've got to say, you know, having had a catheter put in while awake. As far as I'm concerned, that's a one way channel
Will 36:03
that's out there with with doing the lecture. In the blue tracksuit, yeah, not a great scenario,
Rod 36:09
that catheter probably hurt more. So a urologist from University of Chicago says that you can imagine the look most patients would give me when I told them they'd have to stick a needle in the most sensitive portion of their body. So now Viagra is like, well, we don't need that. So sales started immediately after the FDA approved the drug March 27 1998. Sales boom, I don't doubt it. And the takeoff is ridiculous. So there was an article written three weeks after it was released, the Viagra craze a pill to cure impotence. And the headline goes on. You've got a bunch of people being quoted here who'd used it and one guy is saying look, already there was a kind of Viagra, connoisseurship taking hold. I'll really so within three weeks,
Will 36:50
what is the connoisseurship Is it is it dosage one with an oyster don't
Rod 36:54
Yeah, exactly. This one should have a shake and rock salt preferably him alone. And a twist of lemon.
Will 36:59
This This one's for your morning fucking. But you do it slightly differently if you want evening fucking
Rod 37:04
Yes. Dosage. So we're up to 100 milligrammes so they're talking about you know, the hundreds are absolutely incredible. And the effect lasts through that to the following morning. I don't know what we'll maybe that's great. The guy goes on what else can I say? But room cheap gas strong economy erection pills. What a country what a time to be alive.
Will 37:24
save gas tip,
Rod 37:25
dude.
Will 37:26
What year was this again? 98. Yeah, there you go.
Rod 37:30
Simple. It's on the very day it became available. There's an Atlanta neurologist, a guy called Dr. John Stripling, a doctor 300 prescriptions. Wow. And he'd made a rubber stamp earlier to make these prescriptions because he kind of gone I think there's going to be huge so just like Cink next cutting 300 in one fucking day, the day it became available. Another urology health centre guy go from in Florida said they participated in the clinical trials. But the waiting time to see a doctor for a consultation was about a month. So people started come up with other problems in order again to see the doctor earlier.
Will 38:05
Oh, really? Yeah, you get in earlier. Yeah. And Doc as well. Can I get some Viagra
Rod 38:10
by the way? So there's this one doctor guy called Ramon Perez. He said, Look, we've been inundated with emergencies, pain in the kidney, blood in the urine, etc. But when they get in there, they just want to ask about Viagra. Some of these people have been impotent for years and they could not wait. Another guy's director of a company 4000 outlets called Rite Aid drugstore chain, Michael Podgurski, he said, fastest take off of a new drug I've ever seen. And I've been in the business for 27 years. Remember, there's three weeks after it was released. So they said after very brief lag, again, three weeks after release, it was being prescribed and at least 10,000 scripts a day, Jesus three weeks,
Will 38:47
it does show a latent problem if there's a solution, people will storm towards it. And look,
Rod 38:53
it's about routing. And we'd seem to care about that
Will 38:56
there is a lot of trivialising of this problem. And there's a lot of describing this as a problem just of men is clearly not it's a problem of couples, you know, the point the point, whatever, whatever gender the couples are, okay, probably not to women, but
Rod 39:13
they can have their own problems.
Will 39:14
Indeed, but but this is a problem that a lot of people want to solve. And I think I think laughing at it is fun, but also recognising something important going,
Rod 39:24
don't worry, I will recognise that further. Don't worry, I'm not completely dismissive of this. So in less than two months, it was on the cover of Time Magazine. The headline was the potency pill, less than two months, it's already on time. So we go back to some of these quotes from the article I mentioned earlier. So Pfizer ai r&d guide, John niblack. He says, Look, there never was an approved pharmaceutical product for this purpose before literally, this is a absolute game changer. It was really hard to wrap your head around what was going on? Like, what was this going to be worth to us? We were uncertain and we thought we'd start No, they just didn't know like what's gonna happen a lot. Did they did they think a lot that do they think it was going to peak at that 10,000 prescriptions and then drop back to one back down to?
Will 40:06
We've all used it now we're done. It's impossible to calculate the number of people who might be interested in having sex more than once. It's impossible. No one could know this.
Rod 40:15
Have you allowed to do that one more time? One of the doctors who was interviewed for this stuff, a guy called Lam Dr. Lam, I think even Pfizer was overwhelmed by the media coverage. So normally, a pharmaceutical company would like to control the coverage. They're very careful, they want to control the media, but with this, they just totally lost control. Yeah, it's gone.
Will 40:32
I get that it shifts them into a very, very different place. You know, normally they're thinking, okay, so heart medication, or some you know, critical things, solving critical issues, but nothing that gets media attention and a slavering of people that are like, Oh, this is the problem I want you to solve
Rod 40:48
Now. Now now. Yeah. Yeah. And look, he went to go on the Today Show and they said, What are you going to say to us? What are you gonna say on air? And he said, I'm gonna say erection. They said that you can't say the word erection. What, what else? Well, he pushed back and said, it's a physiological term. That is that is the sciency version to say Stiffy turgid? Yeah, she messaged she listened to the gentleman's appendage. Um, they finally said, Okay, if that's the way you feel about it, and he said, this was the beginning of resulting in changing the way people actually spoke about this stuff in public. So Viagra actually had a bigger effect on the conversation. I think it's
Will 41:23
a cultural change for good. No, no, of course, it's for good.
Rod 41:27
So medical emphasis chimes in guy caught Art Caplan. He said, Look, I don't understand what the disease is. You got a drug, but what is it you're treating? And less than what the disease like what actually is being treated? Like when he asked me well, they say impotence, and he says, well, is that a medical condition? And they say, well, we're not so sure. So they begin to talk to doctors and experts. And this is where the idea of calling it erectile dysfunction started. Okay. Because calling it impotence, it's got a valued, horrible implication. Yeah. Erectile dysfunction.
Will 41:55
And so the idea of erectile dysfunction as a as, as something that affects people hadn't really been studied before. Well, they call it impotence. But it wasn't an it but not studied systematically to say, you know, what percent of men suffer fraud or what?
Rod 42:09
I'm pretty sure there was stuff but it wasn't spoken about. And so it wasn't so mainstream, risen up, so to speak. So an advertising executive was interviewed in this article again, he said, Look, just calling it erectile dysfunction, as opposed to impotence was one of the first major decisions that Pfizer made. And the ad agency made, and that removed a whole bunch of stigma. So the initial ads,
Will 42:31
look at this ad advertised, decided see fix solving a problem? Not evil people or good all the time.
Rod 42:38
100% good always, as, as I've always said. So they actually did a good job, it started to help break down stigma. So erectile dysfunction became a standard replacement with impotence, even the NI, H National Institutes of Health in 92. Referring to that,
Will 42:55
so they erased the term. Yeah, apparently, God is weird. It's weird how, you know, it sounds like the scientific term and no doubt, obviously, Pfizer is a scientific company, but not necessarily coming from the literature. Yeah. Coming from advertising. Yeah, that's wild.
Rod 43:08
Because if we say impotence, no one wants to talk about it. But if we say erectile dysfunction, that sounds like a disease, not a failure of your manhood. It's crazier. And the first ads starred, Bob Dole, did a real doll.
Will 43:21
So this is 1998. So Bob Dole, Bob Dole ran in 1996.
Rod 43:25
As the independent candidate for people who hadn't remembered Bob Dole was the Republican lawyer, but then he did run independently later he tried. No, that's Ross Perot, Perot, you're right, sir. I got confused. Let's, but Bob Dole was not a young candidate. And I know that they're 75 When he was doing okay, so we've got older presidents now. Yeah, but still, but so he, he actually went on it was one of the late night talk shows and talked about so those drug rocks, good on him on your Bob, good on him big hard Bob, they call them from that point forward. 1998, one month, more than 300,000 prescriptions were filled. And this is where it gets interesting. So army's sales reps were dispatched by Pfizer, as you'd expect to go and talk about the drug. But they had to coach doctors about how to bring up topics like impotence, or erectile dysfunction.
Will 44:17
I assume a lot of the people going into the doctor's office saying I want this already. I mean, you said that before. Yeah. But as the doctor also checking, like,
Rod 44:25
maybe they're not. We'll get to that. Dr. Lamb again, he said they had to get trained how to ask the question, so they wouldn't be embarrassment. So of course, Pfizer were handing out samples. This isn't a particularly American thing to do.
Will 44:40
I think medical advertisers and a lot of countries do hand out samples.
Rod 44:45
Jeff Evans and other doctors said, Look, they're a patient demos of how firm a penis should be. Just really bizarre. So let's actually say what's good firm and bad firm. To firm. Yep. So we call that semi firm. So uh, you Are you is your partner happy with indeed.
Will 45:01
We all we not all but many, many No? Yes What is good firm and not good firm?
Rod 45:07
Apparently a lot didn't. And again, you can see it if you're someone who's not been able to do that for a while and you kind of forgotten Okay, or you take the drug you're like, should it be this much or that much? Like, do I need a bigger dose or is this out of control? Should I drop it back a notch doc? Another doctor, Dr. Thomas, he says this is where we get to the kinds of things you were talking about a moment ago. Of the 1000s of patients that I saw a few would even come in literally wearing a trench coat a hat and sunglasses and would not give their name.
Will 45:41
Okay, but going into the doctor's surgery, you know, you don't have to be hidden for that.
Rod 45:45
What Yeah, my waiting room going here because I'm in this room here on about you gotta call I can't get her Dick
Will 45:52
walking outside the office with with a big poster. That's my problem.
Rod 45:55
This is going to stiffen me know exactly, but that's how embarrassed they were. They would some of them would get off the elevator and if they saw someone in the hallway they turn around and walk down stairs.
Will 46:04
That's that's not suspicious at all. That's fine, like walk past Yeah, but don't turn around.
Rod 46:09
They turn around. Oh, forgot one. lick my lips on the Viagra. Another doctor Dr. Reddy said this is my favourite I think we were rock stars. There was a waiting room filled with men, all of whom were avoiding eye contact with each other. Just looking down and embarrassed. The urologist had looked through the cutout window and saw me and walked out and with a lot of panache says this is the Viagra man, about the doctor. And I got a standing ovation. So after all that they're sitting around, furtively glancing at their shoes, and then someone says is Viagra go and they will go screw it. This is our guy. So of course, and you kind of flagged this earlier, it's not as simple as Okay, cool. Men can get hard now, men who couldn't now can't there's other stuff going on. So side effects, physiological don't seem too horrible. But if you've got high blood pressure or heart problems, you're advised against it.
Will 47:01
It wasn't the point to high blood pressure.
Rod 47:05
Yeah, well, specific questions. All right. There was some studies early that suggested maybe something but it was purely correlational. And to great lengths to say, Oh, we're not saying it's causal. That might also be because Pfizer's behind it. And you don't want to get that wrong. Psychological though, in terms of side effects, the main sort of addiction issues might be more sort of psychological addiction to it, rather than physiological, like I need this to perform, and now I can't perform without it. But it's the social matters, I think that are more interesting. So good sex, as you flagged isn't just about whether you can get hard on No, it is not. It's also about chocolates. And dinner. Yeah. Okay. And listening and look at you. Oh, look at you. I've seen that movie with the lady and the guy. Look at you. So a professor of psychiatry, at a guy called Raymond rose, and he said, Look, this is not the final word on sexual dysfunction. He says there's a danger that we could lose sight of the fact that a lot of sexual problems relate to poor relationships, for self esteem, no doubt. Yeah, exactly. Also, depression is one element. It's it's it's an important element, but a long way from the only bit. Yeah, my favourite. There was a playboy advisor at the time who said put it this way, you can take an angry couple and give them Viagra, then you have an angry couple with an erection.
Will 48:20
That's true. Oh, that's great. Thanks, Playboy for that. Why, since that's true, yeah, it's true
Rod 48:25
clique homes, but it's actually that's not a bad thing to say, you know, like, we hate each other. And we can have six negative six nests to hate each other. Great. Also, their workplace matter, which I hadn't considered so Viagra salesman says, Look, Pfizer had to conduct sexual harassment training, and do several hours of workshops, especially for female reps who are going to be talking about erections all day long.
Will 48:48
They're talking to doctors though. Yeah, okay.
Rod 48:51
And actually, I was wrong. So the guy said, they're rockstars he was a sales guy, not a doctor. So he was the Viagra guy who was getting the thing. Women also had complicated reactions to Viagra depending on their moods, you're not taking it. Okay, so, taking the other gentleman friends taking it. Some didn't say well, Where's where's the pill for my libido or other matters. Others also weren't not exactly stoked at their partner suddenly wanting to get down and boogie.
Will 49:15
There wasn't a discussion beforehand or may discolour, as you said, maybe maybe dinner, maybe
Rod 49:20
It's sex you don't talk about it. So one sex therapist, she says Stephanie Bueller. I remember the first time somebody came into my office who had tried Viagra, and he was very disappointed. Okay. He said, he went to his wife with a bottle of pills, shook them like maraca. Okay, thanks, buddy. And said, Honey, we're back in business. And his wife apparently said, I thought we were done with that. So he's, I'm ready. And she's like, Okay, another one was I'm really upset. You brought out this drug. Now. My husband is interested in sex all the time. And this has disrupted everything. Okay. So again, you may be more than just now it's gonna get hard again, and maybe have some conversations. Yeah, I think so. The positive side effects. Okay, good. So the the socio cultural implications here, they're really overwhelming. So for many doctors, its legacy was to open the doors to talk about other stuff. Okay, so the dude would start talking about his erection, which is often can be an indicator of heart problems. Wow.
Will 50:15
Yeah as as a sensible man. Yeah, you don't go to the doctor know until you finally get to that data. Yeah. And then you can talk about it.
Rod 50:22
So I can't get a hold on, by the way also you may have other issues. And Dr. Lam against it exceeded everybody's expectations with its impact on men's health, because due to checking, they've started to go oh, there's a link to me being able to get hired or not and other health matters. Yes. Because it's blood vessel stuff. And these are systemic issues. Also another doctor called Padma Nathan. That's surname Dr. Padma Nathan. Because it brought people in, you could start to talk about other stuff and you'd start to accidentally discover prostate cancer, bladder cancer or other stuff. Okay. So that's good. I believe it. Also it opened up conversations, it made it more okay to talk about it, the TV commercials made talking about sort of stuff a bit less taboo. So some pros, so my favourite was an unintentional spin off international relations. That's what this is an article in the Washington Post that said the CIA would use it to getting friends in Afghanistan. So you go in and go, I'm not gonna give you money, dude, what about? Yeah, okay. They would use it to sweeten the deal. That worked out so well. Yeah, seems to go fine. Right. Afghanistan got sorted. No one died. Yeah, it's now like, I know an oasis, one big oasis. So that's kind of the big picture. We need to emphasise, though. So we started with surprises and unusual and serendipitous events, etc. But this is apparently quite common in science happens all the time. And particularly with biology, we know how bits work and other bits but we often don't know how they all stick together. So we find these serendipitous things. It often means also that drugs get put out on the market and then later on, they go wonder what else they do? Yeah, there's a lot of that. And even Viagra had kind of like a resurgence or at least slender filled the active ingredient kind of went back to its roots. So in the early 2000s, they started to run clinical trials to see if it could double as a hot drug. Okay. And in 2005, the FDA approved it for a condition called pulmonary arterial hypertension. So it restricts blood flow to the lungs and can affect ladies and chaps
Will 52:17
do you do get the boner as well though?
Rod 52:19
No.
Will 52:19
Oh, they can stop that bit
Rod 52:21
it's about dosage. So they sell it under a different name. They call it revatio Roboto. It's only sold for that. They both contain sildenafil but Viagra is dose goes from like 25 to 100. milligrammes revatio only goes at 20 Okay, so just under the hardening just oh no, yes, no, not pre turgid dose
Will 52:39
You don't get a bit of an effect,
Rod 52:41
only half gets hard. The other half doesn't just the bottom gets harmed the top doesn't. So what I love both of these can have similar side effects, including headaches, nasal congestion, runny nose, flushing, indigestion and in rare cases, and this is what you want after six, blurred vision and temporary loss of hearing.
Will 52:59
Do I do that's what I'm looking for. That's when you know you're done.
Rod 53:06
And what about Sir Giles? Where did the jobs end up? Oh, God. It seems to be still alive at 96.
Will 53:12
Well, Sir Giles, hope you're listening.
Rod 53:14
Brave man. Other than being the world's best science communicator, obviously, released emphatically clear. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society and he won the Ferrier medal, which as we all know, is one that we haven't got yet that one, it's a big one. He also at some point, he pioneered visual prosthetics develop one of the first visual prosthesis in the 1960s. But they weren't that practical to try and help at least a certain light and dark and stuff
Will 53:39
Visual prosthetics?
Rod 53:40
Yeah, to help blind or very badly damaged if people see Yep, and he invented a musical instrument in the 1960s called the logical bassoon. an electronically controlled version of the bassoon, and quote from Wikipedia, it was easier to play than a normal bassoon, but it was never marketed. So the three main sources are mentioned the little blue pill and oral history of Viagra. That was from Bloomberg, the Viagra craze, a pill to cure impotence, which was in Time Magazine, and the one that really got me onto this, how to give an unforgettable talk. And many, many others is quite a list of scholarly and less so sources on this one.
Will 54:22
That's awesome.
