WEBVTT

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Homer's "Odyssey",

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one of the oldest works 
of Western literature,

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recounts the adventures 
of the Greek hero Odysseus

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during his ten-year journey home
from the Trojan War.

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Though some parts 
may be based on real events,

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the encounters with strange monsters,
terrifying giants and powerful magicians

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are considered to be complete fiction.

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But might there be more to these myths
than meets the eye?

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Let's look at one famous episode 
from the poem.

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In the midst of their long voyage,

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Odysseus and his crew find themselves
on the mysterious island of Aeaea.

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Starving and exhausted, some of the men
stumble upon a palatial home

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where a stunning woman welcomes them
inside for a sumptuous feast.

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Of course, this all turns out to be 
too good to be true.

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The woman, in fact, 
is the nefarious sorceress Circe,

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and as soon as the soldiers
have eaten their fill at her table,

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she turns them all into animals
with a wave of her wand.

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Fortunately, one of the men escapes,

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finds Odysseus 
and tells him of the crew's plight.

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But as Odysseus rushes to save his men,

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he meets the messenger god, Hermes,

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who advises him to first consume
a magical herb.

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Odysseus follows this advice,

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and when he finally encounters Circe,
her spells have no effect on him,

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allowing him to defeat her
and rescue his crew.

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Naturally, this story of witchcraft
and animal transformations

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was dismissed as nothing more 
than imagination for centuries.

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But in recent years, the many mentions
of herbs and drugs throughout the passage

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have piqued the interest of scientists,

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leading some to suggest

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the myths might have been 
fictional expressions of real experiences.

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The earliest versions of Homer's text

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say that Circe mixed baneful drugs
into the food

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such that the crew might utterly forget
their native land.

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As it happens, one of the plants growing
in the Mediterranean region

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is an innocent sounding herb
known as Jimson weed,

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whose effects include pronounced amnesia.

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The plant is also loaded with compounds
that disrupt the vital neurotransmitter

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called acetylcholine.

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Such disruption can cause 
vivid hallucinations,

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bizarre behaviors,

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and general difficulty distinguishing
fantasy from reality,

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just the sorts of things

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which might make people believe 
they've been turned into animals,

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which also suggests that Circe
was no sorceress,

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but in fact a chemist who knew how
to use local plants to great effect.

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But Jimson weed is only half the story.

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Unlike a lot of material in the Odyssey,

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the text about the herb that Hermes
gives to Odysseus is unusually specific.

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Called moly by the gods,

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it's described as being found
in a forest glen,

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black at the root 
and with a flower as white as milk.

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Like the rest of the Circe episode,

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moly was dismissed 
as fictional invention for centuries.

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But in 1951, Russian pharmacologist
Mikhail Mashkovsky

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discovered that villagers 
in the Ural Mountains

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used a plant with a milk-white flower
and a black root

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to stave off paralysis 
in children suffering from polio.

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The plant, called snowdrop,

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turned out to contain a compound
called galantamine

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that prevented the disruption
of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine,

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making it effective in treating
not only polio

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but other disease, such as Alzheimer's.

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At the 12th World Congress of Neurology,

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Doctors Andreas Plaitakis 
and Roger Duvoisin

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first proposed that snowdrop was, in fact,
the plant Hermes gave to Odysseus.

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Although there is not much direct
evidence that people in Homer's day

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would have known about 
its anti-hallucinatory effects,

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we do have a passage from 4th century
Greek writer Theophrastus

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stating that moly 
is used as an antidote against poisons.

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So, does this all mean

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that Odysseus, Circe, and other characters
in the Odyssey were real?

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Not necessarily.

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But it does suggest that ancient stories
may have more elements of truth to them

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than we previously thought.

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And as we learn more
about the world around us,

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we may uncover some of the same knowledge

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hidden within the myths 
and legends of ages passed.