Futility Closet

In the 1870s, French gas fitter Albert Dadas started making strange, compulsive trips to distant towns, with no planning or awareness of what he was doing. His bizarre affliction set off a 20-year epidemic of "mad travelers" in Europe, which evaporated as mysteriously as it had begun. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll consider the parable of pathological tourism and its meaning for psychiatry. We'll also contemplate the importance of sick chickens and puzzle over a farmyard contraption. Intro: Ontario doctor Samuel Bean designed an enigmatic tombstone for his first two wives. The Pythagorean theorem can spawn a geometric tree. Sources for our feature on Albert Dadas: Ian Hacking, Mad Travelers: Reflections on the Reality of Transient Mental Illnesses, 2002. Carl Elliott, Better Than Well, 2004. Peter Toohey, Melancholy, Love, and Time, 2004. Petteri Pietikäinen, Madness: A History, 2015. Craig Stephenson, "The Epistemological Significance of Possession Entering the DSM," History of