In the nineteenth hundred , the Grim Reaper was seemingly around every corner . A glass of water , abeautiful garb , or a brightly biased piece of music of wallpaper could all spell your doom . inadequate sanitisation , dangerous do work practices , and far-flung poisons meant that even those in their heyday of living were not resistant to sudden death . Thankfully , today ’s scientific advance — and ripe regulating — have massively improved life-time anticipation , although some of these danger still lurk .
1. Flammable Fashion
In the 1850s and ' 60s , the movement for hugecrinoline skirtsboomed . These turgid structured petticoats covered with material gave the impression of a tortuous dame , whereas previously , the look had been achieve by wear numerous layer of skirt , which was both hot and clumsy . Crinolines became popular in part because they were light and easy to operate .
There was , however , a downside to their purpose — crinoline , often made of transparent material such as silk and muslin , werehighly inflammable . legion newspapers reported on the tons of women who had the ill luck to get too close to a naked fire . Fanny Longfellow , married woman of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow , conk in 1861 after her dress went up in flames when a lighted equal or little piece of paper fell on her . Longfellow himself attempted to get rid of the flames , but his wife ’s skirts were so inflammable it proved impossible to save her life . Another sad example was Archduchess Mathilde of Austria , who in 1867 is said to have pulled the classic teenage move of hiding a coffin nail from her male parent behind her back and inadvertently set her frock ablaze .
Newspaper reports abound with editorial on the perils of flouncy mode , and offered various solutions ( sometimes perhaps in jest).The Tabletin 1858 recommended , “ We would … propose that every dame wear a hoopskirt , should be accompany by a footman with a pail of water . ” Needless to say , this was not a practical solution , but trends before long affect away from crinolines and the scourge of fire lessened .
2. Opium Overdoses
Quieting fractious babe has always proved a challenge , but in the 19th C a seemingly wonderful solution was bid : opium . tone of opium , such asGodfrey ’s Cordial , were widely used as method to comfort sickly or teething infants . Although it might seem horrifying by innovative standard to drug children into listlessness , in the 19th century opium was an extremely popularmedicineand , before the days of St. Joseph , was commonly used as a painkiller and kip aid .
Godfrey ’s Cordial was especially democratic among work - class mother who often had to return to work before long after the birth of a small fry . It became not uncommon to dose babies with Godfrey ’s to ensure the youngster remained in a stupor until the mother give from body of work . Unfortunately , accidental overdoseswere frequent — in 1854 it was estimated that , in Britain , three - fourth of all deaths ascribe to opium were of children under 5 years old . Fortunately , well regularization has mean that children ’s medicines are now tightly ensure today .
3. Cholera Contamination
Many of us take it for award that we can reverse on the faucet and imbibe a glass of clean water . However , in the nineteenth century , as the populations in Europe and America ballooned and increasing numbers of people moved to cities , the infrastructure struggled to cope . Many slums had open sewers in the streets and an treacherous water supply , and communal wells and piss pumps were often contaminated with raw sewage . This mean that urine - borne diseases such as Asiatic cholera and typhus became rife .
The epidemic cholera outbreaks of the nineteenth centuryoriginatedin India , but with the growth of global trade mesh it before long spread around the earthly concern . A pandemic around 1832 ensued when the disease get to Britain and America for the first fourth dimension . Several other pandemic tangle the world , kill 23,000 people in Britain in 1854 alone . Physician John Snow mapped the subject of cholera in London ’s Soho that year , and traced the cause to a single water pump that was site near acesspool . The ticker was removed , and cholera cases dropped dramatically . As scientific understanding of the spreading of body of water - bear diseases amend , public water supplies were cleaned up , and the last documented Indian cholera outbreak in the U.S. was in1911 .
4. Arsenic Poisoning
colored green wallpaper was the height of manner in the Victorian era , mostly spearheaded by pre - Raphaelite artists and designers . The light-green paint often used , known asScheele ’s Green , had first been developed in 1775 by German - Swedish pharmacist Carl Wilhelm Scheele , and the key to its vibrant shade was the enjoyment of atomic number 33 . Although ratsbane was have it away to be vicious if eaten , at the time it was intend to be dependable as a color paint .
In 1862 an investigation was carry out after several children from the same family sickened and died within weeks of each other in Limehouse , London . Dr. Thomas Orton investigated the guinea pig and concluded that the children had beenpoisonedby the As in their bedroom’sgreen wallpaper . Arsenic colouring was also used for apparel , hats , upholstery , and cravats . The poisonous substance was sprayed on vegetables as insecticide , and even added to beer . limitation on its utilization in food and drink were only add in 1903 . Today , historic houses have had their arsenic wallpaper take away , and arsenic - dyed dress in museum collections are generally kept safely behind chalk .
5. Fatal Factories
By the 19th century , rapid industrialization across Europe and America had lead to thousands of mill producing everything from textile to munitions . legion adult — and children — were employed in these factory , providing ample chance for death and injury .
Thecotton factoriesof Manchester , England , for deterrent example , could vote down you in a number of path . First , the air travel was thick with cotton fiber , which over time build up in workers ’ lung , do respiration difficulties and lung disease . Then there were the gyration , grinding machines that might catch your arm or hair , dragging you into the loom . Children were employed to clean house under the auto and retrieve pretermit spindle because their lowly size allow them to move about under the actuate machine — but a trip or a loss of concentration often proved fatal . The huge routine of chance event and deaths in mill eventually led to increased regulating — concentrate working minute , restrict nestling labor , and making the machine themselves safer .
6. Sudden Spontaneous Combustion
Some Victorian scientists trust that alcoholism could cause spontaneous combustion . This idea caught the public imagination , and the hypothesis was used by Charles Dickens inBleak House(1853 ) to explain the death of the bibulous rag and bone man Mr. Krook . In Victorian accounts , the victims were typically overweight and were gravid drinkers , and their bodies had seemingly burst into fire , leaving only their ramification intact . Needless to say , the threat of self-generated burning was presently seized upon by the temperance cause , who used the supposed liaison to alcoholism to scare people aside from the daemon drink .
For example , TheAnatomy of Drunkennessby Robert Macnish ( 1834 ) described the various eccentric of drunk and consecrate a whole chapter to the peril of spontaneous combustion . Macnish narrate a telephone number of face studies , including that of Mary Clues — an chronic drinker who was found almost entirely burn excepting one peg , while the elbow room around her was more or less undamaged . Despite the widespread discussion of unwritten combustion in the Victorian era , it ’s now in general consideredhighly unlikelyif not impossible . advanced forensic science has in part explain the phenomena through the “ wick effect , ” wherein a body on fire produces dethaw fatness that seeps into the clothes , causing a foresighted , wearisome , ego - hold in burn that may look like the result of ad-lib combustion — but almost for certain began with an external reservoir .
7. Pestilent Pox
Smallpoxhas been around for over 12,000 years . Europeans brought the disease to North and South America in the Age of Exploration , killing up to 90 pct of indigenous populations . Smallpox was still prevailing in the nineteenth one C and killed about 30 percent of its victims . Those that survived were often blinded or ill scarred by the virulent pustule . To give some approximation of the scale of human death , in just one year , 1871 , over50,000 peopledied of smallpox in Great Britain and Ireland alone .
In 1796 the English doctorEdward Jennernoticed that milkmaids who had charm moo-cow pox appeared to be resistant to variola . This led Jenner to create the populace ’s firstvaccine . As with many new developments , it took a number of years for vaccination to see on , but once it did the incidence of smallpox begin to fall . In 1980 the World Health Organization declare the disease exterminated — the first virus ever to be whole eradicated world over — thanks to a sustained program of vaccination .
