Short Stuff: Straitjackets | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

[Music]. hey and welcome to the short stuff I'm. Josh there's Chuck and we've got Jerry. all wrapped up so that means this is an. episode of short. stuff yeah that's right uh you know I. don't know why I thought of this I may. have I don't know maybe I was listening. to Quiet Riot or something because the. idea of straight jackets popped into my. head and I was just wondering I was like. you know you see you still see that. stuff in TV and movies yeah but I was. like you is that still a thing and it.

turns out not so much no not so much. House of Works did an article recently. on straight jackets and I also saw a. really good um article on a site called. history hit which I hadn't heard before. but a guy named Kyle HRA wrote about him. and ESS part of this came from how stuff. works a little bit of it okay cool yeah. I thought I I recognized that um so. straight jackets came around in the. Georgian period way more recently than I. thought some some people say about 177.

around them and they're exactly what we. think of them today which is um they. were used to prevent um people with. severe mental illness from harming. themselves and others. by preventing them from moving their. arms they could still throw their torso. at you but they couldn't like strangle. you or smack you or punch you or choke. you or anything like that because their. arms were tied around their back through. these overly long sleeve leaves that.

were attached to a jacket hence the. straight jacket very TI very tightly. that's where the word straight comes. from yeah yeah exactly straight as in uh. AIT T yeah straight laced meaning. tightly drawn or tight fitting yeah not. straight As in straight and narrow no. and not straights like ludicrous is old. restaurant in Atlanta I didn't know he. had one they had a dessert it was. chocolate soup which from what I could. tell is just watered down. chocolate you know the Falcons have uh I.

have season tickets and they have. different themes usually M and one week. it was the history of hip-hop and so. there was all kinds of people that came. out and sang during the breaks and stuff. timeouts and at one point ludicrous uh. came down from the ceiling of Mercedes. Ben's Dome nice like strapped into a a a. thing stra jacket with like a GoPro on a. selfie stick that's awesome man like. hundreds of feet in the air it was. pretty amazing I would have lost my mind. with fear had have been.

oh we all pretty delighted so uh. Straight Jackets have sort of risen and. fallen and locked up with the um uh what. they used to call you know insane. asylums we don't use that term anymore. but these asylums really grew uh over a. couple of hundred years in the 17th and. 18th centuries and and lock step so did. the use of straight jackets uh they were. heavily used for a while like you said. just to to keep people from hurting. themselves or others and their rationale. at the time was sort of like Hey listen.

at least you can move around we're not. like chaining you to a bed or something. like that yeah so you can get up and. walk around at least it's a little more. Humane than um than the alternative um. but things started to change as things. changed and how we looked at treating. mental illness yeah and um one of the. things there was actually a strange. Turning Point um where they started to. go out around the time that King George. III of England who was running the show. when the American colonies declared.

independence and fought uh England for. Independence and won by the way um he is. there was a very famous movie in I. believe book called The Madness of King. George great movie I had not seen it but. I do know that he was um considered. barking mad as they would have put it. back in the day he had um they're not. quite sure what he had they think. possibly even had a metabolic disorder. called pereria and wasn't mentally ill. at all but these were just symptoms of. Poria he could have also had sever. Mental Illness but he was confined in a.

straight jacket very famously by his. doctor Francis Willis Francis Willis. also seemingly cured George III too uh. and very publicly so and so King George. III represented the end of straight. jackets because he also represented the. beginning of the concept at least in. England and the colonies that mental. illness could in fact be cured and that. created a revolution in how we treated. the mentally ill from from that point on.

it all pivoted in the in one king yeah. you should totally see that movie it's. great okay like capital G great who's. that David Keith no Nigel Hawthorne is. King George. David Ian Hol is uh Dr Francis Helen. mir's in it it's it's really really good. okay I'll check it out um so in the. 1910s of course is when we saw the. straight jacket worn by Houdini um as a. way to like do a a stunt and full view. the audience rather than holding a.

curtain up um but his brother actually. Theodore hardine uh used a straight. jacket before Houdini evidently and I. think Houdini might have ganked that. from his bro yeah you know we did a. whole episode on Houdini it was a good. one it was um speaking of good ones I. say we take a message. break let's do it well now when you're. on the road driving in your truck why. not learn a thing or two from Josh and. Chuck it's stuff you should know you.

shut down all. [Music]. right is fun with Josh and. CH Stu you should. [Music]. know so these days uh if you're not. watching movies or television uh where. you still see tons of straight jackets. um you're probably not going to see them. use much at all uh they are pretty. outdated ated um now we have um we have.

all kinds of different things from. better treatments uh better medication. better techniques more staff uh the idea. of um just sort of the the idea of. restricting someone's Liberties by. physically restraining them like that is. just sort of an outdated way to look at. stuff uh they can also be deadly I think. there was a case in 1829 at Lincoln. Asylum where someone actually like. strangled themselves with their straight.

jacket yeah they were strepped to the. bed in a straight jacket and left. overnight and when they returned they. had strangled themselves or had been. strangled by their straight jacket. overnight and all the way back in 1829. this Asylum uh Lincoln Asylum banned the. use of straight jacket so even as far. back as that within a few Decades of. their invention they already had a bad. name as being dangerous despite being. considered a more Humane alternative to. chaining somebody which it was you could. say um but yeah you said we now have.

different like different techniques to. um we do have physical restraints still. they're usually like super fuzzy um. wrist and arm restraints but they use. those as the last resort right um if a. patient in this is the United States I'm. not sure about some of the other. countries that hear us um but in the. United States if a patient is dangerous. or presents a a clear danger to themsel. or to other people you can um against. their will inject them with the sedative.

to restrain them so it's chemical. restraints M or we also have different. non-confrontational techniques and I. looked that up because I was curious. what that amounts to and it is the most. like loow hanging fruit that apparently. works if a patient is agitated you get. them away from whatever is agitating. them and then you ask them what's wrong. what can I do to help you what do you. need to feel better about things and. that this works you just take him to a. low sensory environment and just talk to. him like a human being that's that's the.

new technique now instead of straight. jackets or chains yeah cuz I imagine. being approached by like three big dudes. holding up a straight jacket is not. going to lower the the temperature at. all and one has a net and one has a. trident yeah I mean it really is a it. really is a Almost 100% a Trope because. like these things went out of fashion so. long ago but movies and TV just kept. using that set same Trope because it. just is such a signal um for what you're.

to say what kind of person this is which. is a danger I think if there's any. through thread to stuff you should know. and there are many but definitely that. we've been grossly misinformed and. misguided by TVs and movies over the. years it's definitely a thread of stuff. you should know yeah for sure um there. is a company and I don't know if it was. this might have been from the house of. Works article I'm not sure but uh there. is a company in uh Waki I hope I'm.

pronouncing that right Wisconsin called. uh Humane restraint and I read that the. first 12 times is human restraint which. I thought was the the worst funny name. for a company that did this sure but. it's actually a great name because it's. Humane restraint it's a company that. makes this stuff did you go to the. website and look around no but I did. look up suicide smoks well just peruse. Humane restraint the website at some. point because it's just one of those. things where you are sort of shocked to.

realize that there are of course a. company makes this stuff this company. makes all the bed restraints they make. the safe furniture that you can't like. hurt yourself on Gummy furniture they. make the suicide smoks which is uh you. can't like uh roll them up like to hang. yourself or or tear pieces off or. whatever no it's a it's a it's a a a. dress made out it's a gown made out of a. moving blanket no I know but the whole.

point is you can't roll it up and use it. as a noose yeah or or tear it no I know. it makes total sense but it's made out. of moving blanket material yes exactly. for sure and the company that makes. these make a uh less than a hundred. Straight Jackets a year they're called. Humane jackets on the website and if you. were to Hazard a guess how much they. cost what would. you what would be your guess nice. leather uh strapping oh yeah yeah I me. top looks top-of-the line stuff canvas. of course.

$1,700 Drew my friend you can get a. Humane jacket for $225 bucks what yeah. it was much cheaper than I thought wow. that's probably pleather then it may be. but they had a a it's just an. interesting website to think that wow. there's a company that just makes this. stuff but like what a what a market to. Corner uh I think the interesting thing. is is uh they interviewed someone from. there and they were like hospitals. aren't buying these anymore at all.

obviously we sell maybe a hundred of. them a year and 100% of them are to. jails and prisons yeah that's the. depressing fact of this podcast totally. um in 2014 a group called the treatment. Advocacy Center said that um pointed out. that jails house jails and prisons house. a 10 times more seriously molil people. than State psychiatric hospitals do and. the reason why that's a little bit of a. um a three card Monty move right there. because there are no State psychiatric.

hospitals anymore because of Ronald. Reagan and of course the reason they're. also using Straight Jackets is because. they don't uh they're not hospitals and. they don't have to play by the same. rules of Humane treatment so they could. you could still be in a prison and if. you're a danger they deem you a threat. or whatever they can put you in a. straight jacket so Chuck I'm a rocker. and I really loved your Quiet Riot. reference who else has worn straight. jackets in the music music industry over.

the years well my friend you and I saw. Alice Cooper in concert together in. person so we know Alice Cooper does yeah. thanks to an invitation from Hurricane. neita herself that's right who else uh. Johnny Rotten very famously wore one in. the um Save the Queen God Save the Queen. video uh the Sex Pistols yeah and Quiet. Riot that Quiet Riot wasn't even in that. article that I found that mentioned. these others no but they just right. there on the cover you did some extra. excellent extra.

research you got anything else I got. nothing else well then straight check it. is. out stuff you should know is a. production of iHeart radio for more. podcasts iHeart Radio visit the iHeart. Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you. listen to your favorite. [Music]. shows.