Hidden Killers of the Victorians ?
I came across a show called Hidden Killers of Victorian Homes which was written and presented by Dr. Suzannah Lipscomb on BBC Four — they shocked my slightly germophobic heart infinitely and gave me some understanding in what kind of an era people were living in.
The standard of living changed drastically during the Victorian era. It was marked by several innovations and ground-breaking scientific changes accompanied by the industrial revolution which lead to a huge increase of population and a new, rich middle class. The mass production has dropped the costs of necessities so these middle classes had money to spend for luxuries, which were designed to conform to the Victorian ideal of home as ‘a place of comfort, refuge and wholesome morality.’ They were accumulating possessions as never before to show off their social status. It was, as Dr. Suzannah Lipscomb said, ‘the beginning of a mass consumer culture.’
Supervised, as Charles Dickens described, by the ‘ministering angel of domestic bliss’ — or as you may call it — the wife, the Victorian home has become a safe haven for the man who had to face the corrupt outside world.
It was crucial for the prude Victorians to have possession that weren’t disgraceful or shameful: they even had guides such as ‘The Moral Influence of Furnishing’ to give their consumption a moral meaning and ‘elevate a household’s moral tone.’
Nowadays, it would sound quite bizarre if I told you that your choice of décor emanates a negative energy that infects your home and family, right?
Ironically, several things in the Victorian household, praised for their moral integrity and part of the mass productions scheme of the 19th century, were the things that infected their home and family negatively:
- Death by Wallpaper:
For the first time, due to the introduction of oil and gas lamps, the Victorians could put up vivid colours on their walls. There was a particular high demand for Schele’s green wallpaper, which was made from copper arsenite. This was, unbeknownst to the Victorians back then, poisonous. This green pigment was not only used in wallpaper but in several other everyday items such as clothing, interior decorations, cosmetics or even coloured sweets ! The name poisonous green might have derived from this.
2) Painted Toys
Victorian toys were brightly coloured and commonly painted with lead paint. Since the lead paint had no unpleasant taste to it, children were very likely to have licked it or even put it in their mouths. One flake could be enough to poison — lead attacks the nervous system. It can cause severe damage in a child’s development and cause encephalopathy (refers to syndromes of overall brain dysfunctions). In mild cases it caused something similar to ADHD I believe— correct me if I’m wrong!
3) The Beautiful Waist
Victorian corsets exerted great amount of pressure on the inner organs and distorted the liver, constricted the lungs, and even displaced the uterus! Basic movements were highly uncomfortable and predisposed women to uterus prolapses and pneumonia. You were likely to faint because of the obvious. If a woman had a vitamin D deficience, her bones could be deformed easily and her organs could be pushed downwards. Many women even wore pregnancy corsets which could harm the development of the fetus.
5) ‘Murder Bottles’
One of the most unsanitary inventions of the Victorian era was probably this:
This bottle provided the perfect environment for all kinds of life-threatening bacteria. A teat made out of animal skin connected to a rubber tube with a cork was attached to a glas bottle. In theory, this might seem like a perfectly fine invention. Fact is that they didn’t wash the teat for the two/three weeks it lasted, the bottle itself was difficult to clean and they used porous materials for tubing which has lead to several tragic deaths of innocent babies — only two out of ten lived to their second birthday !
It’s fascinating to see how science and medicine has evolved, don’t you think ? If we just look at the Victorians, how their life began to be dominated by mass consumption and its marketing/manufactoring which was not controlled by legizlation whatsoever, we can be thankful to live a life where we don’t just live by trial and error..
Sources:
Watch the episode here:
