“In spite of all, some shape of beauty moves away the pall from our dark spirits”

-John Keats

The Art of Beauty. Mrs H.R. Haweis, 1883.

Edit: Oops. Wrong blog. But it stays for now. Meant to go on Cabbaging Cove.

Gummatous syphilide, with ulceration and necrosis of frontal bone

If you’ve ever wondered how someone could live with a skull like this one.

Tertiary syphilis would arise between three to 15 years after infection, and emerged as “gummatous” (forming gummas, soft tumor-like nodules, like what caused this lady’s ulcer) about 15% of the time. If the inflammatory nodules didn’t form on an important organ or blood vessel (as they could, and did, form anywhere in the body), gummatous syphilis wasn’t in and of itself fatal. Death from infected ulcers was not uncommon, however.

Interestingly, you could have gone to town with this lady and not gotten syphilis from her, despite her having been infected for probably more than half her life - tertiary syphilis is no longer transmissible.

A Practical Treatise on Diseases of the Skin. John V. Shoemaker, 1892.

The Decorative Home Apiary

“How doth the little busy bee,
   improve each shining hour;
Gathering honey all the day,
   From ev’ry opening flower.”

“Mama, mama! Rufus is eating uncle’s bees!”

The American Bee Keeper’s Manual. T. B. Miner, 1849.

Mastodon Skeleton

The word “mastodon” comes from the Greek roots that translate to “breast [nipple] tooth”. It refers to the nipple-like projections on the mastodon’s teeth, making its dentition pointier, and far more suited to eating leaves from bushes and trees, rather than grass (which the elephant ancestors and mammoths ate). Animals that primarily eat foliage are known as “browsers”, while animals that primarily eat grass and ground plants are “grazers”.

Principles of Zoology: Touching the Structure, Development, Distribution, and Natural Arrangement of the Races of Animals. Louis Agassiz and A. A. Gould, 1851.

So what’s this dapper gentleman saying to his most proper lady?

“Mad dog”

This 1826 cartoon depicts a “mad dog” in the London streets, attacking people. You can note the “Hydrophobia!” warning posted in the upper left-hand side of the caricature.

Rabies was definitely a thing people wanted to avoid, and was especially terrifying because they didn’t understand anything useful about the virus. All they knew was if you got bit by a mad dog, you had less than a year before you went dumb or manic and then ended up dead, yourself…at least if your bite wound didn’t get infected and kill you before then!

heracliteanfire:

“Not unlike the stylish bicycle helmets worn by today’s children, this is a beautifully made example of protective headwear worn by children in the early 19th century. Pudding caps or bumpers were padded hats commonly worn by small children learning to walk to protect their heads from any falls. It was thought that if children fell too frequently unprotected their brains would turn to a soft pudding-like consistency, hence the name “pudding cap.” Children were often referred to as “little pudding heads” because of this belief. A linen or muslin cap was commonly worn underneath. The quality of materials and craftsmanship used in this particular example suggests that this cap was owned by an affluent family.” (via The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Cap)

Giant Tortoise

“I say, gents! This mammoth chelonian seems rather titillated by my pipe!”*

Popular Official Guide to the New York Zoological Park. William T. Hornaday, 1915.

*The book notes that the tortoise is “inspecting the pipe of a zookeeper giving an instructional prior to feeding time”

ornamentedbeing:

Research chemist William Perkin was trying to make quinine when he instead came up with a substance that has ensured the world is a brighter place.

“… For that privilege, thank a young Victorian research chemist. His attempt to create the anti-malarial medicine quinine from coal tar in his flat in Cable Street in the East End of London went serendipitously wrong as he worked over Easter 150 years ago… . Appropriately, considering the origins of Perkins’ colour, he was to receive a helping hand from the two most famous women of the day - both empresses. Queen Victoria caused a sensation when she stepped out at the Royal Exhibition in 1862 wearing a silk gown dyed with mauveine. In Paris, Napoleon III’s wife, Empress Eugenie, wowed the court when she was seen wearing it. To propel the scientist further on the way to a great fortune, the fashion of the time was for crinoline skirts that, happily for him, needed a lot of his revolutionary new dye.” 

The entire article is fascinating! 

Edit: to clear up confusion this photo is Princess Victoria, the Princess Royal (1840-1901) taken on the 3 of July 1861.

Amputating the legs. Note the surgeons still wearing their wigs during operations. This isn’t just artistic license, they really did. I mean, I know Dr. Lister hadn’t even been born yet, but really? Wigs?! 

A General System of Surgery in Three Parts. Dr. Laurence Heister, 1745.

I think I quite agree with the caption “The best kind of bird on a hat.” 

Fashions of the time had largely moved past the curious style of having practically an entire bird on the hat that was so popular at the beginning of the 20th century, but some smaller toques and day hats still featured long feathers. 

A fashionable turn-of-the-century hat for the high-society lady of the East Coast of the United States:

Photograph from Book of Birds: Common Birds in North America. Produced by National Geographic, 1918.

belatucadros:

scary

What happens to your innards when you put on one of the corsets in fashion during the Victorian and Edwardian eras. 

They were a legitimate health problem until they fell out of fashion at the end of the Edwardian era.