[Music] the historic image of victorians is prudish upright and of self-righteousness but underneath the surface they were just good at hiding their vices in a time when a lot of addictive substances now considered illegal were being sold as medicine victorians still found other things to feiend on welcome to nutty history today we're exploring the dark secrets of addiction and obsessions hidden under the rugs and behind the closets of the Victorian [Music] times [Music] a pure sugar diet the Europeans discovered sugar in the 1600s and for the next two centuries it almost exclusively remained a royal
Affair Queen Marie Antoinette's love affair with chocolate was quite famous marsipan became a canvas of creativity for many chefs of the 17th and 18th centuries to impress their respective monarchs the Italian royalty well they were in love with gelato thepoon loved his fruit desserts and we all know about English trifle thanks to the Industrial Revolution refined sugar became more of a common household product and it was no longer a luxury exclusive for kings queens and Aristocrats sugar became much cheaper and more profitable to produce in Victorian times but as you can see in Queen Victoria's
pictures it is evident that desserts remain very much an essential part of the royal menu many modern Suites were also invented during this age such as fudge and rhar custard par drops and dark chocolate followed by milk chocolate it took 30 years of experimenting after the first dark chocolate bar was produced in 1847 the Industrial Revolution also coincided with the automation of the sugar extraction process as well as the mass production of sugar cane in the West Indies at the plantation Farms during the Renaissance sugar was used by artists to sculpt Grand statues of aristocrats
called triop that these wealthy brats would use to show off their riches in the late 19th century sugar cubes were accessible to people living in Devil's acre in Frying Pan Alley in London between 1845 and 1854 British Sugar consumption saw a meteoric rise of 3,000% and by the time the Victorian era was over 1/5 of an average English diet was pure sugar in terms of calories in 1854 a young woman named Eliza Smith was admitted to the London Hospital with symptoms that modern doctors would associate with sugar addiction regularly consuming large quantities of candy and
pastries she craves sweets intensely despite complaining about toothaches and suffering from various digestive issues gee you think as Psychology was still a budding field Physicians described her conditions as moral depravity and prescribed a daily dose of laxatives with lengthy and boring moral lectures another woman in Manchester was ordained with the title sugar fiend after it was discovered she was consuming 5 lounds of sugar every day it led to massive amounts of weight gain mood swings lethargy and eventual mental instability after chocolate bars became commercial in the 1850s doctors reported concerns about chocolate poisoning when symptoms
of hyperactivity anxiety passing out and even hallucinations became common among Victorian children the Victorian ages defining author Charles Dickens often used desserts and sweets to portray themes of Temptations and symbols of moral weakness with characters like Fagan in Oliver Twist you know another downside of sugar Mania was making it poorly which was a fairly common thing in Provisions in the slums of London anyway yes sugar was relatively much cheaper than before but it was still quite Out Of Reach for the poor so enterprising grossers would often mix powdered sugar with cheaper white powdered substances the
most used substitutes utilized by these scummy Grocers were plaster of Parris and powdered Limestone collectively called daff or Daft and we don't have to explain how dangerous they can be to Consumer's Health but one particular instance could have ended with a loss of a colossal number of lives mummy tasting party even though mummia an alleged medicinal product extracted from the Egyptian mummies had existed for centuries the egypto Mania of the Victorian times helped to create a disgusting addiction to Mummy nibbles the rich and the elite of Victorian London were having mummy unwrapping parties when they
were not in the mood for something naughty so they'd rather nibble on some mummy stuff than actually be kind of naughty and freaky is that what you're saying that's what they're saying right that's exactly what they're saying wow in fact they treated the Egyptian mummies unwrapped in these secret parties as buffets and had small morsels out of them Europeans long believed that Egyptian mummies had healing properties that could cure almost every ailment of human kind and help prolong lives when consumed the mummy and rapping parties were the new social buzz and among the Victorian Elites
who would gather at one of their rich and Powerful French places after the formalities the host would bring out a mummy they acquired most likely through a black market of archaeology and then they would unrap the mummy for the Wonder and awe of the guest often followed by the tasting what the first of this kind of party was hosted by an English surgeon named Thomas pedre for his peers a group of physicians in 1821 in the name of scientific curiosity however when word got out pedigree was asked to do more such parties for the Nobles
and Wealthy folk of London and the word spread fast even though there was no social media back then now by the 1830s The Craze forced pedigree to be more selective about his Gentry and hold parties in secret eyes white shut style this prompted more Aristocrats to follow suit and the addiction lack lasted for decades before it cooled off on its own arsenic manic it was 1858 the shop owner of a particular store called humbug Billy in Bradford North England got sick after trying out his own Shop's dhic sugar despite that he still decided to sell
the entire stock he wasn't aware that his sickness was caused by arsenic powder that was mistakenly sent to him by his suppliers in place of daff his sale risked 2,000 lives in Bradford but he still did it to get rid of the stock even at a discounted price thanks to the town crier the locals were alerted about poison sugar before hundreds would have been dead yet the greed of humbug Billy and sugar addiction claimed 21 lives and 200 more had to be treated for poisoning it wasn't just mishaps with sugar adulteration arsenic filled every aspect
of Victorian life despite the fact that most people were aware of how dangerously poison as it happened to be domestic pesticides fabric dieses wallpapers cosmetics and even ironically medicine for libido and skinc Care issues arsenic had all of Britain in its grasp it was long before any sort of Regulation could be conceived which in itself was a long and arduous process there were two trends when it came to women's looks in the Victorian era that peaked the English Rose and the Painted Lady the painted lady was the epitome of the goth appearance and the look
was all about attempting to look as pale as possible so that even a ghost would feel embarrassed the Cosmetics required to achieve this look not only had white arsenic but ammonia Mercury and lead and prolonged use of such products would make women extremely vulnerable to tuberculosis fact is a lot of families in the Victorian era that use arsonic lace wallpaper were reported to have respiratory diseases and many Unfortunate Souls succumb to them and still The arsonic Craze went on in fact many Victorian women who were found guilty of multiple deaths for taking the lives of
their near and dear ones for either Insurance scams or farming orphans use arsenic to accomplish their goals as the substance happens to be easily solvable odor listen tasteless the victims perish slowly over the course of time while forensic tests for arsenic poison were not yet possible the forbidden fruit the Victorian age is remembered for its moral High ground and carnal repression holding respect integrity and piety over everything else while also keeping the Prejudice and oppression hidden in the closet that Britain enforced over its colonies globally there's no denying that the Victorian British were a bunch
of upright prudes but they were quite hypocritic critical too the business of physical pleasure was booming in Victorian London as there were 900 registered female ladies of the night in the city around 1857 being a lady of the night was a much better paying job in Victorian times than any other day jobs available for women that fact was true not just for Posh and prosperous London but also for the frontier in the Far West Liverpool's little hell was swarming with streets offering more bordellos and grocery shops they also came in flavors with a lot of
theme bordellos catering to certain kinds of exclusive taste for their patrons if victorians were truly the champions of dignity who was paying these 9,000 ladies of the night who stay on the lonely streets at night truth is victorians were obsessed with secluded love activities and you have to look no further than the titcher lady of the age and her husband who were deeply and passionately in love with each other to the point that it was hard for them to keep some air between themselves on one hand victorians scrunched their nose on the matter of intimacy
but they also expected women to be full-time baby machines so vetan time for couples was only perceived in a good light if they were procreating as the royal couple had nine kids it is not hard to figure out that they weren't spending time together to have kids but they were having kids so they could spend time together still nine pregnancies took a toll on Queen Victor's mental health she already had parental issues from her childhood but she gladly endured it to be with Prince Albert another time and another time and another time their private Adventures
were quite the Talk of the Town too there is a reason why the name Prince out Rob Bert has become a euphemism since then and it is rumored that somewhere in Buckingham Palace there is a saucy painting of Queen Victoria that the prince commissioned for her birthday despite that the alleged painting was nowhere close to the other scandalous Affairs of the royalty after Prince Albert passed away it was rumored that Queen Victoria had taken a much younger lover in her later years another young man was caught lering around her quarters multiple times when Prince Albert
was still alive one time he was caught having Queen Victoria's Secrets in his pockets if you catch my [Music] drift the grown-up block under Victorious reain holywell Street became the Hub of a special publication meant for only grown-ups while Charles Dickens was reigniting the fires of classic English literature in Bloomsbury holywell Street was the place where fictional imagination took a deep dive into the depravities of the human mind if somebody arrived in London holding the conventional image of victorians a trip to now extinct holywell Street would have been an eye opener with all the provocative
literature and art it had to offer books like the Pearl the nunery tales the autobiography of a flea and many others have survive the street that is forgotten now tell us in the comments which other period we should cover next do subscribe to our Channel share and like this video if you would like to see more and thanks for watching nutty history
