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calendar   Tuesday - December 10, 2013

SOME HISTORY OF INTEREST AND A BREAK (BRIEF) FROM THE USUAL MAYHEM

Something interesting on TV tonight I might catch on puter tomorrow.

It’s called “Hidden Killers: The Victorian Home”

Here’s a brief list of things. Some is old news and a few items were unknown to me. I think I’ll have to see the documentary cos it seems like an interesting subject. Sure is a different post for me at bmews.
I won’t list all ten.  If you’re curious there’s a link below.

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1. Bread adulterated with alum

When basic staples like bread started to be produced cheaply and in large quantities for the new city dwellers, Victorian manufacturers seized on the opportunity to maximise profit by switching ingredients for cheaper substitutes that would add weight and bulk. Bread was adulterated with plaster of Paris, bean flour, chalk or alum. Alum is an aluminium-based compound, today used in detergent, but then it was used to make bread desirably whiter and heavier. Not only did such adulteration lead to problems of malnutrition, but alum produced bowel problems and constipation or chronic diarrhoea, which was often fatal for children.
-30-

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3. Exploding toilets

Source: BBC History

The bathroom as we know it is a Victorian invention, but at first, it was a dangerous place. Besides horrible cases of scalding in the bath, newspapers reported deaths from cases of lavatories spontaneously exploding. The reason was that flammable gases such as methane and hydrogen sulphide, emanating from human waste, built up in the sewers and, in early toilets, leaked back into the home, where they could easily be ignited by the naked flame of a candle. It wasn’t until Thomas Crapper invented the siphon valve that such gases could be kept out of the house.
-30-

5. Flammable parkesine

An oft-forgotten British inventor is Alexander Parkes, who invented the mouldable material that we today call plastic. He christened it parkesine but it quickly became known by its American name of celluloid. Such early plastics were highly desirable because they allowed everything from brooches and hair combs to billiard balls, previously only available in expensive ivory, to be made cheaply. It was even used to make collars and cuffs that could be easily cleaned. Unfortunately, parkesine is also highly flammable - as it degrades, it can self-ignite and is explosive on impact. Not ideal for a billiard ball.

SEE THE REST, BBC NEWS


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 12/10/2013 at 12:22 PM   
Filed Under: • History •  
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Oh, and here's some kind of visitor flag counter thingy. Hey, all the cool blogs have one, so I should too. The Visitors Online thingy up at the top doesn't count anything, but it looks neat. It had better, since I paid actual money for it.
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