The Myth of Tuberculosis Fashion : Victorian History Debunked

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When Consumption peaked in the early 19th century, there was a panic over how to manage the growing numbers. It wasn't a predictable disease- hopping from person to person with months or years before symptoms appeared. Which led doctors to believe that it wasn't contagious, but instead fueled by their family history and activities. It was a disease that could be found in the upper classes, affecting young and seemingly healthy people. So they looked to fashion and fashionable activities as the culprit. Everything from corsets to reading novels took the blame, and we've never recovered from the stereotypes. The idea that women are vain and obsessed with fashion solidified with the propaganda, as did the unfounded fear of corsets, the modern concept of purity and modesty, and so much more.
Today it's common to see fashion cited as one of the exciters of consumption, despite our modern knowledge that it's a bacterial infection. It's not because we blame their thin shoes or high collars, it's because we've been taught they were so silly about vanity that they endangered themselves to achieve it. Using poisons, starvation, and more to achieve the "look". But, the reality is, the romantic nature of consumption in the era wasn't due to fashion, it was due to the ideals of the time expecting young women to be frail and demure, expecting young men to be intellectual and modest. Tuberculosis excited these features, bringing the victims closer to their ideals of heightened sensitivity and religious dependence.
All to say, by also blaming fashion for the romance around tuberculosis, we ignore the actual reasons which are still with us today. We still have an "ideal" of womanhood that includes personality traits and activities that aren't healthy. We still treat illness as a form of redemption or punishment. We still blame those who are ill (especially chronic) with not doing the right things to stay healthy, while also making those things difficult to achieve. Just think about how much healthier (physically and mentally) a population who had safe ways to walk around every day would be! But instead we blame people for not getting in their car, driving across town, paying a monthly fee, and spending hours inside at a gym.
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00:00 Contagion & Confusion
06:26 Predisposition
10:04 Beauty Ideals
15:23 Fashion as Villain
23:38 Lasting Consequences

[@vlogbrothers]

This is a great video, and a super helpful series of corrections. I've linked to it as the pinned comment on the Crash Course video. Thanks. -John

[@rummygrl]

So cool seeing this comment. Seeing my favorite creators being helpful and constructive with eachother is so nice to see rather than the stereotypical rage baiting and insulting. Yay internet wins today!

[@MissingRaptor]

​@@rummygrl John is the best for this contribution based approach to improving knowledge 💖💖💖

[@AGothNamedWednessday]

I love yall so much, like the way yall handle things like this is so good (and like the way it should be, but never is)

[@darthbee18]

Woah, that was fast! 👀✨

[@MazaB]

We would love to hear you both nerding out about tuberculosis!

[@hatorigirl1202]

The idea of shifting beauty standards to unhealthy traits reminds me of "heroin chic"

[@jennypaxton8159]

I was thinking of that too! Just a new name on the tin, from consumption chic to heroin chic.

[@Dysfunctional_serenity]

Heroin chic is tb chic, heroin chic gave the exact same appearance; thin, pale, frail, hollowed sunken faces. Ariana Grande, Gwenyth Paltrow, Nicole Kidman (who played a strung out tb infected beauty in Moulin Rouge), Kendall Jenner, etc…

[@kittydream_4717]

That's the first thing I thought of when she started on the topic

[@sweetpotatfry9001]

The "scientific" pictures of the scrunched up organs of women who wear corsets always crack me up because our organs shrink and shift when we are pregnant. What do they think a woman's lungs and intestines look like when she's 9 months pregnant? Pregnancy messes up your internal organs more than any clothing.

[@ruzi.the.spider]

Yet another cause to some of us to not get kids. 😅 (sorry had to respond haha, no offense to mums)

[@MossyMozart]

@@ruzi.the.spider - Organ shifting during pregnancy is temporary. After birth, they return to their usual positions. Don't worry.

[@bcase5328]

Fainting, they failed to account for smoke, pollution, and leaking gas as a contributing trigger.

[@canuck3169]

And toxic out-gassing from wallpapers, clothes etc

[@MossyMozart]

@bcase5328 - And hyper-vagal tone caused by untreated rheumatic fever. No antibiotics then.

[@margaretschaufele6502]

Or if you haven't eaten properly that day.

[@Ellulellu]

And also as a dramatic measure to gain attention😄

[@dissodatore]

@@Ellulellu , or to not want to answer questions on various topics!

[@aeolia80]

For those that may be on the fence of believing Nicole about how bad TB is still in the world, I have lived on 3 continents so far in my life, one major move was to Kansas, yes, Kansas in the US, before I moved I was advised to get a TB test done (at the time it was this injection under the skin in the hand and if you had a reaction you had TB), I had the same procedure done 2 years later when I moved back home to California. Then 10 years later I moved to Korea, and I was required by the government to have a digital x-ray done when I first arrived then every other year for my particular visa to check for TB, then 5 years after that I fully immigrated to France and again for my particular visa the government required I have a digital x-ray done to check for TB. TB is extremely contagious and there are strains that are antibiotic resistant, so it makes sense these governments would check for it.

[@saraa3418]

Here in the DC area, kids have to have a TB test before entering kindergarten.

[@bunhelsingslegacy3549]

@@saraa3418 I think when I was a kid in the early 80s we had to have that then too

[@splendidcolors]

In California, there are certain jobs (healthcare, teaching, child care, caregiving) where you need to pass a TB test because you could be a focal point for widespread infection. (Like Typhoid Mary trying to stay in foodservice.) I had classmates from South Africa, where everyone is vaccinated for TB, who had to get an X-ray before volunteering at the hospital because the skin test would give a false positive. The antibodies from the vaccination caused the skin test to provoke a response.

[@Alex-mc5yn]

In Eastern Europe, specifically, former USSR, it's pretty widespread. Back when I was in university, which is about 2 years ago, it was referred to as an epidemic. You are required a fluorography to get a job or to enroll anywhere. Tests are also regularly done to determine whether you have it as a child, they're called Mantu reaction. The worst places or contagion are prisons, you are very likely to catch it there if you haven't already had it. The worst part is that it scars your lungs and can come back at any moment even if you successfully treat it. The bacteria also travels pretty far by air and water. I knew a guy who used to have a closed lung form, he likely died during the rona epidemic since we lost contact around that time.

[@ticcingalong2962]

In Illinois you have to get a TB test done before you’re allowed to student teach before getting a teaching license

[@PhoenyxV]

Men in 1830s fashion plates got a full on Barbie silhouette going on.

[@technopoptart]

you can never have too much neck!

[@jennypaxton8159]

Everybody forgets that men also wore corsets!

[@maryeckel9682]

I just saw a little boy's 1830s suit with that silhouette. Start em young, I guess!

[@SewlockHolmes]

As soon as I heard that part in John Green's video, I was like "someone hook him up with the CosTube community!" I'm glad you're addressing this and I hope the folks over at Complexly hear about it.

[@rge9992]

The nerdfighteria/costube crossover audience is surprisingly large, judging by comments sections… so maybe?

[@kaypgirl]

​@@rge9992 He mentioned it on Twitter a while ago, after mentioning it on Tik Tok, and I replied with Abby's correction Tiktok stitch that he hadn't seen. He then took down the tweet, so I was really hoping that he would do more research and realize that was false. Evidently not. But the timing for this wasn't the greatest for a response, he just got done doing Turtles movie promotion so I'm guessing he'll be needing a small recharge break.

[@myladycasagrande863]

John commented on this video!

[@kathyjohnson2043]

Yep, done

[@SpaceSoups]

@@rge9992 DFTBA and fashionable.

[@fernandagonzalez2019]

I watched John Green’s video and cried out your name and Bernadette’s

[@FaithOriginalisme]

i cried out for the general historical fashion youtubers.

[@liv97497]

True, but it was such a small portion of the video and completely in line with what a lot of reputable sources have stated.. I think it's truly only with the help of people with this specific knowledge that those myths can be dispelled.

[@FaithOriginalisme]

@@liv97497 yeah, hence this entire video. lol

[@gatcow1678]

During the holocaust if you were in a camp or ghetto that had a TB outbreak you got a certain number or symbol tattooed on your arm by your is number. Then when people were freed or got out they still had issues finding housing or passage on boats because of that extra marking. My Oma and Hupa tried to get out and come to America 8 times and finally got boat passage for all four of them and were about to be turned away because my Hupa had that additional marking on his ID number. But they were warned that it was being checked so my oma and Hupa went into the bathroom and he lifted his skin and she cut his tattoo out of his forearm with her sewing scissors.

[@julianpeppers1889]

when u talked about fashionable body ideals fluctuating btwn being "delicate" (thin) and "suggesting fertility" (curvy) it just brought me back to growing up in the 00's when being above 110 pounds meant you were considered fat and unattractive, to the 2010s when "thicc" became fashionable and everyone wanted a big butt after having mocked them for a decade people never change, huh

[@tellmewill]

And now after the popularity of BBLs, the pendulum swings again in the opposite direction

[@kirstenpaff8946]

Was there ever a realistically proportioned fashion illustration? I find it so annoying when sewing patterns use drawings instead of pictures, because the finished product never looks like the drawing.

[@lexp6099]

I'll never understand why fashion plates are intentionally stylized in such a manner! These are drawing to depict real, physical items and you've got no idea how they look on an actual body unless the wearer happens to be built like an anime character.

[@jennypaxton8159]

Ugh, I hate that! I don’t want to know how the garment looks artistically drawn on a fictional idealized body, I want to know how it will look in real life.

[@YellowFreesias]

The drawing: Svelte goddess. My final dress: Potato costume.

[@Nikki-lodeon]

​@@lexp6099I took a fashion illustration class and what was funny is that the height of the models was actually supposed to be drawn in more extreme proportions than even anime. I had to retrain myself to be able to draw or even see normalcy in more realistic proportions.

[@sabresister]

@@lexp6099it’s giving the extreme amount of photo-manipulation in modern media, no matter where we looked throughout history, all we see is unattainable 😢

[@ZaydaFleming]

So glad you made this. I was enjoying his lecture on TB until he brought up corsets and then I was just screaming “noooooooo”

[@jennypaxton8159]

I mean, to be fair, if you already have consumption and regularly tight-lace so you can’t take a full deep breath, surely that would be apt to make things worse! Always a grain of truth, I guess…

[@ZaydaFleming]

@@jennypaxton8159 Possibly, but if I remember correctly John Green’s video was saying that corsets in general limited the ability to breathe deeply, not just when tight laced. And if you already have TB corsets are definitely the least of your problems.

[@jennypaxton8159]

@@ZaydaFleming I’m not saying he was right! Just that there could be a grain of truth, in that extreme and improper corseting could make things worse.

[@glittergoblin]

I’m noticing how similar so much of the fears from when TB was at its height in Europe/North America are still applicable. Not necessarily to TB, but to things like mental health or wellness culture. Same concerns about what you wear (especially Fiber content and tightness), what you eat, activity choice and level, and environmental toxins.

[@NicoleRudolph]

Yep! Our treatment of illness, and particularly of those who are ill, has strong roots in this era.

[@k.h.6991]

There is a huge amount of research on the effect of diet and exercise on health, these days. These concerns aren't merely fear mongering. Environmental toxins were and are a recognized health risk as well. Imagine the smoke filled air of 19th century towns.

[@marinaprosperina]

My father had a latent form of TB that he most likely caught as a child (1930s-1940s). He got run down in his mid-40s. Because he smoked, (and was coughing a lot), he had a chest x-ray, whereupon the doctor could see the TB scars on his lungs. He tested positive for TB; we also had to get tested. But because it was latent he wasn't contagious. This was in the U.S., so TB continued in the U.S. in the 20th century. He grew up in Detroit and his cousin died when she was 10 from the disease.

[@ruthspanos2532]

My mother had it as a child in the late 1930s and was sent away as a preschooler to quarantine from her sister. It recurred after High School. We were discouraged from telling anyone.

[@MR2spyder100]

My Dad was a school teacher in Michigan, and in the sixties, they had to get chest x-rays every so often to check for TB.

[@acecat2798]

Like most people, I watched John Green's video and thought it was pretty good except for the 19th c fashion part. I think that attributing fashion emphasizing a small waist to the romanticization of TB is a gross oversimplification. Elizabethans didn't romanticize TB, and their fashion tends to emphasize a long, flat, thin torso for women. Early 19th century Regency people did tend to romanticize TB (see: the death of John Keats), and their fashion doesn't focus on the waist at all. The idea that higher hemlines were what made shoes an article of fashion (and that this is only due to TB romanticization) just doesn't click with the timelines. We have many ornate shoes from long before the 19th century-- 18th century Europe loved dainty shoes and clocked stockings, for example. Green is right to call out how absolutely awful it was that Victorians romanticized TB-- a miserable and deadly illness. And he's right that we need to pay more attention to the history of health and disease, and stop acting like TB is a solved problem. But the romanticization wasn't the cause of all things fashion-- that's an answer that relies on stereotypes about the Victorians, which doesn't hold up to much scrutiny.

[@killitwithfire5377]

To be fair, there is nuance to these statements. I'm no expert on fashion history but I'd definitely say that the pandemic was partially responsible for the popularity of puffed sleeves during the last couple of years. Sure, puff sleeves have been a fashion staple for centuries and they were due to come back around that time anyways, but cottage core became so popular because everyone was stuck inside, it also heavily draws on the "peasant aesthetic" that features loads of gathering and puffed sleeves. So I do think cottage core and with that Covid had something to do with that particular fashion trend. There's always multiple reasons for everything

[@lynnodonnell4764]

I live in a neighborhood with houses built in the late 800s /early 1900s. Many of our homes have Sleeping Porches on the 2nd floor. The sleeping porches were thought to be a TB treatment as in providing fresh air to the sick

[@pmclaughlin4111]

I have sleeping porches on my home. They are actually really nice when the weather is hot. With a breeze, better than airconditioning.

[@-Reagan]

Sleeping porches were used by everyone, especially children in hot months, for comfort and health especially common in certain climates (like here in the South where you can die of stroke in summer without air conditioning). There was no electric air conditioning back then. Of course, if you had TB or asthma or something it was great to get fresh air, too - though, it wasn’t only for sick people. That’s the TL;DR Sleeping porches continued to be used long after TB vaccines and the disease was controlled. There are many photos from the 20’s/30’s/40’s/50’s of children sleeping on sleeping porches. Even when they didn’t have a proper sleeping porch, or even a porch at all - people still slept outside on balconies and even put their children to bed on fire escapes in the city. Yes, seriously, there are photos of children sleeping on the fire escape in NY city in the 50’s. They didn’t have TB, it was just that hot. Most of those fire escapes did have high metal grating or fencing/railings so they probably ((hopefully) didn’t fall off too often… as far as the other risks, there’s probably newspaper articles somewhere about what happened if there was actually a fire or gas leak and they needed to use the fire escape- wake up the kids and run?? Idk if anyone was actually kidnapped from a fire escape where they were sleeping but now I think of it I’m curious to know.

[@eileencarroll6418]

Scandinavians typically bundle up their children and put them outside to nap in the cold fresh air for health purposes. Same in summer but not bundled up. Ice plunging and ice swimming are becoming more popular for health now (e.g., Wimhoff method). When I was a kid, we did not have a sleeping porch but we did sleep on the floor in the living room because it was the only room with windows that could cross-ventilate. We would use an electric fan to exhaust out one window and that would draw cooler air through the other windows. Pyjama Party! When my mother was a kid, lots of people would travel to Chicago's lake front to sleep in the parks under the cool lake breezes of Lake Michigan. She admitted it was a bit of a party and an excuse for unmarried couples to canoodle in public.

[@lynnodonnell4764]

@@eileencarroll6418 I read of a Scandanavian couple who was visiting the US in the winter. They went out to eat at a Cafe and bundled up their wee one and set the child in the stroller outside where they could watch. This was a *normal* thing they did back home. Someone called the authorities on them for 'child neglect' when they saw child in the cold *unattended*. They had no idea they were doing something wrong and explained this to whoever showed up. Talk about Culture Clash !

[@YellowFreesias]

The houses in my neighborhood (1923) were built with sleeping porches too. Not sure how much fresh air they got back then - the subdivision was near a freezing works that tipped all its "waste" into the sea...

[@vickymc9695]

I still remember the end of the UK ad health campaign agents TB in the 1990s. With signs against spitting, coughing on buses, swimming pools and public toilets. It always struck me as odd, till my gran pointed out that was extremely common when she was young. So only 3 generations on from pushes to reduce transmission.

[@jaybee4118]

That’s interesting, I don’t remember that at all and I was born in the 70s. Maybe it was a bit of a regional thing? I lived rurally.

[@sharimeline3077]

That's interesting, because starting in the 1990's I noticed more and more people spitting on the ground in public - where I had grown up being admonished to never spit in public, because it spread diseases like TB.

[@nickyclarer]

There was also a testing and vaccination campaign. Many of my classmates when I moved to the UK in '04 had round scars on their arms from test that determined whether they needed to be vaccinated against TB. I think they were the last year group where everyone was tested before it became at risk groups only.

[@vickymc9695]

​@@jaybee4118lived in the middlelands. TB is harder to get a handle on because of people visiting families in areas with poor vaccinated records. It's one of these reasons why I think the WHO should buy the patients to older vaccines, and fund free or low cost inoculation clinics. Until everyone's covered no one really is.

[@noctelupus]

Yeah I was born in 1992 and although I was very young but I do remember a fair bit of like background concern around TB when I was a kid

[@nancyt2003]

My mother came down with TB at 18 years old in 1947. She was consigned to a sanitorium in Seattle, Washington for almost 5 years! During her time there they experimented on the patients with the drug streptomycin. She did get well eventually but for many years of my young childhood (I was born in 1952), she still tested positive. More to your point however, she was shunned and treated as though she had done something to deserve the disease.

[@emmaRBC]

A lot of people still think of chronic illness as something that couldn't affect them because they would just do better to recover and that surely I'm just not trying hard enough. Even within the community there's a lot of looking down on others. Hopefully one day society will be more understanding

[@M.Datura]

Oh yeah, this is such a big thing! It's insane, like, it was over a century ago when I started getting ill at 14, and it's shaped my life in such a way that I feel nothing but kinship with those unfortunate women dying of tuberculois, supposed to accept that they themselves were the reason they got ill, and still somehow be comforting their loved ones, forgive them for any and all things, when they themselves were dying. It's both horrifying, devastating and enraging. I have yet to find an online community where people are not either bogged down in the details of how to handle the health concerns I have, or bringing with them massive amounts of internalised shaming and guilt.

[@scallopohare9431]

TB still casts its shadow over our obsession with weight. Over a century ago, MONY developed a chart of healthy weight in relation to height. At that time, slim people were viewed with suspicion for TB, so they were more carefully screened before buying a life insurance policy. Thus, the healthiest, thin policy holders skewed the statistics, making slim people to seem more healthy, when unhealthy slim people simply never got in the numeric pool.

[@M.Datura]

I did not know this. That does explain stuff. I really wish systems of classification would be taken with a grain of salt.

[@nidomhnail2849]

Excellent video. A follow-up with you and Green would be wonderful.

[@curiousfirely]

I would love that too! (Even if my brain would break from the excitement.)

[@yaourtprintanier2377]

She already debunked the arsenic Green myth😆

[@MissingRaptor]

That would be amazing!!!

[@Speilbilde]

I really enjoyed John's video overall, but went "oh no" at the corset bit. Happy to see this follow-up (and to see John have watched and commented already). As we say in Nerdfighteria, you did not forget to be awesome, Nicole! This rules.

[@janehollander1934]

As a child in the 80's I remember seeing [and even played in 1 of them, on the farmland property of a schoolfriend's] several old little wooden TB huts. Here in the countryside of The Netherlands 🇳🇱. These little wooden rooms had big windows and two sets of French Doors. They were placed near to the farmhouses. And they were for family members who couldn't go to our big National sanatoriums, mostly along the North Sea coast (for the fresh sea air). Or even being sent to TB sanatoriums in the Alps (like Davos in Switzerland). Where TB patients could rest in long corridor "balcony" hospital rooms, with big windows, so they could be exposed to as much fresh as possible (next to their medical treatment). These tiny wooden houses in 🇳🇱 were built on a metal base that could easily spin the whole hut. So the TB patient's "bed"room could be turned into an incoming fresh breeze/wind. Here in The Netherlands we now only have 141 people with TB (TBC). And 80% of these people hail from countries where TB is still a common illness, like Eritrea, Morocco and Somalia. Now most of the efforts around TB here in Holland: is working with the W.H.O to combat BT in developing countries that still battle with this particular disease. 👋🏻from 🇳🇱.

[@joyfulsquirrel]

Thinking about your section on women being more "tuned in" and then when ill to an almost 'supernatural' extent. It's feeling very much like the empath/hypervigilant thing in discussion now. Women were likely just hypervigilant, in nervous system imbalance, and never felt safe enough in society around all the people who controlled their lives (yes, these are generalizations, of course, but in a large amount of history, especially in European societies, men are/were in charge) and I'm blown away that this idea of women being more sensitive and in tune just all comes back to them being oppressed. Amazing

[@julietfischer5056]

The subservient know more about their so-called superiors than their so-called superiors ever know about them. They have to, for survival, especially in times and places where there were few protections and fewer options if they were turned out.

[@M.Datura]

Yeah, most of the things that were described as the "negatives of femininty" here (and many other places), to me looks just like a list of common behaviours for people under great stress, with PTSD, being or having been abused. It's so clear it hurts me how much people don't notice, and how much I myself didn't notice before.

[@julietfischer5056]

@@M.Datura- Once people (including women) got the idea that certain behaviors were inherent to being a woman, they couldn't see what was happening. In one Sherlock Holmes story, Doyle had the detective gripe that a woman's smallest action could mean volumes while her greatest efforts were over a pair of curling-tongs. How many of his readers missed the implications of that? He certainly did.

[@M.Datura]

@@julietfischer5056 I'm not quite sure what you mean by that, but I'm assuming you mean that that too is an indication of traumatic stress from the abuse of living in a society that harbours hatred for half the world's population at it's base, as that is what I see. If your every move is watched and judged, you learn quickly to hide what is most important, and show the most about yourself. Notoriously (to me), the women in Doyle's works are usually horrendously depicted, and I've later come to understand that at least half the arrogance and prejudice that's in it cannot be attributed to Sherlock's character; it's ingrained in the very words used, and hence clearly a sign that Doyle himself had these thoughts and opinions.

[@gerileemakes]

I would love a Nicole/John collab all about TB

[@lenabreijer1311]

The other thing that reduced fertility in Victorian times was syphilis. It was rampant and much of the population had it. In women it caused birth defects in their babies and many infants died or were stillborn. A genealogists i heard said if you find a gap of 8 to 10 years in living births, she probably had syphilis. After that time the disease moves to other parts of the body or goes into remission for a while.

[@xerk2945]

I'm really excited about the nerdfighteria x history costube crossover. I'm really, really excited. Additionally, I'm the food safety coordinator for three franchised quick service restaurants. Last year food code changed and required all restaurants have a very detailed, written policy for foodborne illness that evey employee signs and agrees to follow. In addition to the government required foodborne illness policy, our corporate offices are requiring every restaurant to also have a policy for TB built into our health policy. I thought that was odd, so I researched it a little bit and discovered restaurants are one of the main places where TB is spread in the US. Between the workers, not to the guests.

[@redfuchsia5553]

Thats great and very important video - tuberculosis definetly is NOT a thing of yesterday. Five years ago I was diagnosed with it, and I suspect that I got infected during earlier stay in a hospital (I also have a autoimmunological deasise). Six monts of antibiotics its not fun, but losing a part of your lung or even your life is even less... So if you are coughing for a long time go to a doctor and no, you won't be coughing blood right away, if at all, it starts small and could take many years to develop.

[@kirstenpaff8946]

I got vaccinated for TB as a toddler in the 90s. My family had moved to eastern Germany soon after reunification and there was still a significant Russian military presence that was blamed for a TB outbreak. The vaccine makes it possible for me to get false positives on TB tests, so filling out medical forms is always fun.

[@johnvonundzu2170]

There's still so much health related nonsense out there. For instance, the guy who advertises (on this site) that his product will make "pounds" of "rotting poop" that has been hiding in one's colon to give up and be easily expelled.

[@myladycasagrande863]

A few cups of coffee should do the trick! 😂

[@sharimeline3077]

My niece fell for that, she even went to her doctor and told him that she thought there was a lot of rotting poop inside her, and that she needed a strong laxative! So he prescribed her GoLightly, which is a very strong laxative that they give you before they perform a colonoscopy. And trust me you don't want to take it unless you have to. Fortunately she called me, because she knew I had taken in before, and we discussed it. Thank goodness I convinced her not to take it, and hopefully convinced her that she doesn't have all this rotting poop inside her. I hate medical quacks so much.

[@kathleenwoods8416]

Isn't that commercial like 30 mins long if you don't skip it?

[@kathleenwoods8416]

@@myladycasagrande863 More like half a cup if there's anything at all in there. By the time your out again the rest'll be cold.

[@kathleenwoods8416]

@@sharimeline3077 That's not too uncommon a position to be in with fad diets & such. People really do need direction on how not to poison themselves sometimes. So good job on your incident!

[@SuperEohippus]

I have been doing family research, and it seems that about 1/3 of the people in my family tree during the past 200 years have died for tuberculosis. Four of the five siblings of my grandfather still died for it, and also his two little nephews.

[@sharimeline3077]

Yes, it was so common.

[@jercasgav]

Yeah in a PBS documentary (I believe it was called "The Forgotten Plague"), they said that 1 in 6 of ALL the humans that have ever lived on earth have died from TB.

[@kirstenpaff8946]

As someone who writes and reviews scientific journal articles, I kind of wish we still used the melodramatic language of Victorian medical journals. Modern scientific journal articles are dry as dust and reviewers come down hard on "emotional" language. Oh well, the price we pay for scientific accuracy I guess.

[@jennypaxton8159]

Medical historian here! I’ve spent quite a lot of time in 19th century medical journals, and while that kind of overheated language sounds very unprofessional today, it was incredibly common then!

[@kirstenpaff8946]

@@jennypaxton8159 I find it hilarious that modern people think of Victorians as dry and stuffy when they were actually the most melodramatic, over the top drama queens.

[@jennypaxton8159]

@@kirstenpaff8946 And Goth, too! All the pageantry of death, and mourning jewelry made of human hair and black jet, and photo portraits with dead loved ones, and so on. So Goth.

[@dragonflies6793]

And unfortunately biases still make their way into scientific & medical texts, even with more dryness. We read a great piece by Emily Martin on this called The Egg and the Sperm about texts projecting gender roles onto eggs and sperm, even to the point of being biologically inaccurate

[@julianpeppers1889]

ALSO ALSO i love your emphasis on how strict beauty ideals could and would only really be achieved or attempted by those with the money and inclination! like today, most people dont look like an instagram model or a celeb on the red carpet- people have jobs, they cant afford to go to the gym with a trainer 4 days a week to sculpt their butts and upper arms, they dont get weekly facials, or frequent salons for hair and nails, or wear full glam all the time (even models and such don't preform every day) and even people who chase beauty in few of these ways probably dont do all of them

[@PurelyCoincidental]

Thank you so much for this video. I don't normally watch Crash Course, but I'm a 19th c. nerd and that one video was understandably suggested to me. I was so aggravated by it that I think I finally gave up after he tried to link "waste" and "waist."

[@potatertot360]

I actually yelled WHAT! in offense and scared my cats at that. 😆 Like, really, pal? You're gonna try and say this in the same breath that you say the two words are not etymologically related??? ARGH.

[@Swishy_Blue]

Somebody get this to John Green, ASAP

[@kikiTHEalien]

​@@LauraSomeNumberNo, he didn't. This comment was posted 2 hours before his.

[@kathyjohnson2043]

Done

[@auditoryeden]

Thank you, Nicole, for performing the valuable service of fact-checking one of the god-kings of informational KZbin. I love the Brothers Green and am a nerdfighter from the wayback machine, but no one is perfect and bits of the TB lecture made me want to tear my hair out. I hope he reaches out to you or at least reexamines these topics before they make it into his upcoming book on the subject.

[@punkykenickie2408]

"now that's what i call conspicuous consumption!"

[@TaraHisakata]

My grandmother got TB while living in Japan and her lady friends made cards for her that had a lot of angel imagery. When you mentioned stuff about them being compared to angels. This was in the 1970s btw. TB is still an issue even to this day though it is curable.

[@StageDreamer2590]

As soon as I watched John's video, I was waiting for this.

[@thehomeschoolinglibrarian]

I loved both this video and John Green's I would love to listen to you talk about this topic. I would also like to point out that TB is still common in US prisons and as a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Romania they tested us for TB every time they got us together for training and told us not to drink raw milk because of the risk of getting TB

[@ladybirdchance]

I work in a hospital with 3 respiratory specialists, tb is still a big deal.

[@jercasgav]

What I love about researching into the past with primary documents (I like the 1860s-1930s in particular), is that our ancestors were US, with just slightly different circumstances. You can be sure that human nature largely stays the same, and we are all prone to the group thinking and zeigeist of our respective generations, because it is the lens through which we see the world. A lot of the historic stereotypes we have just are not true! History is amazing, because it teaches us what it means to be human, and gives us a huge advantage in choosing which decisions are best to make for today and for future planning. Why rest on the knowledge of less than one lifetime to make choices, when you can glean knowledge from many generations when trying to inform a decision?

[@loftyradish6972]

Because of the prevalence of tuburculosis, in Australia if you are going to be put on an immunosupressent medication, you get tested for TB first so if you have a latent infection is doesn't go active if your immune system is compromised.

[@scallopohare9431]

Likewise in the US. I take an injectible for arthritis, and have yearly resting for TB.

[@lisanorwoodtreefarm]

I saw his video (I LOVE crash course) and when it got to the part about fashion I thought "oh.... they should have checked with Abby and Nicole" If you guys get to chat, i hope there is b roll of your puppers playing ^_^

[@lindabloom6666]

This was very interesting. My great-grandmother had consumption, in fact, she may have had it when she married. She had three children in quick succession, and died at age 23, leaving her babies to her mother to raise. What is interesting to me is that her sister also had it, but lived much longer. She and her husband moved from Michigan to Arizona so that the "climate could improve her health." Evidently, it did, temporarily? because they moved back, and she finally died at a much older age, also from consumption. There is no sign of any of my family isolating from their other family members or their children, so I assume that that one contracted it from the other while she still lived at home. They however, carried on with their lives, marrying, having children, and running their households without panic.

[@yensid4294]

Oh my, the attitudes towards TB treatment sound familiar. When in doubt, blame the sick person instead of just admitting you (the medical profession) doesn't know the cause or cure. I always wondered why illness & death became so romanticized? Kind of suspected it was a psychological coping method.

[@robintheparttimesewer6798]

The fact that you have to point out that scientific wasn't is stunning! It's sort of funny and very sad how many things were misrepresented and still are today. Would love to see the two of you continue this discussion! As a teen I regularly coughed up blood and regularly got tested. Did it again a few years ago and was surprised to find I had to pay for the test. Makes me wonder just how seriously the Canadian medical system is taking this problem!

[@gadgetgirl02]

GO NICOLE!!! This really made me think about some things I learned while studying English literature, and connected a bunch of things which I did not previously understand to be connected. Thank you!

[@NicoleRudolph]

I feel like an absolute conspiracy theorist with cork board full of spiderwebbed threads every time I venture into the 19th century! ITS ALL CONNECTED

[@gadgetgirl02]

@@NicoleRudolph A big part of my English Lit classes was talking about how the Victorians were the first to live in a wired world, so that makes total sense to me!

[@splendidcolors]

@@gadgetgirl02 There are SO MANY parallels between their culture and ours. People act like social trends didn't exist before TikTok but that's clearly not the case!

[@ald7282]

my grandmother got TB in the 80s in the US. she's a nurse, and caught it from a patient. i thought that was so crazy when she told me, believing it died with the birth of widespread antibiotic use in the US, but no. she had an active strain as well, so she went through treatment for it and take a leave of absence from work. i had to get TB tested before i took my CNA courses in high school in 2020. i also have a journal from my great grandmother's sister, who died of TB at the age of 23. she had to stay in the back bedroom, away from the rest of the family. it's such a heartbreaking thing, especially since she had a young daughter at the time when she became symptomatic and ultimately passed.

[@fitandhappy42]

Great video, I really hope you do get to have that sit down with Mr Green.

[@fabricdragon]

the fine points (for non historians) of "she was beautiful with her doe like eyes, porceline skin and high colouring..." that is followed inevitably several chapters (or magazine articles for serials) with the lovely woman turning out to have consumption,... is hard to sort out. the traits that were held as beautiful and the symptoms of TB that were widely talked about overlapped... and of course given the exposure to the Heroin Chic model era? its pretty easy to look at the era with a (pardon the pun) jaundiced eye. mind you the fact that so many health, beauty, cosmetic, and so on treatments were at least mildly toxic? definitely did not help. arsenic exposure alone caused a lot of "beautiful health problems"

[@lisakilmer2667]

I noticed that a large portion of your quotes came from the American Phrenological Journal. If they were great promoters of the idea that "corsets cause TB" it makes sense from their philosophical stance. They believed that the shape of the skull impacted personality, therefore, why should not the shaping of the body impact health? Of course, both are nonsense, but the ideas mesh together.

[@sheleavitt06]

Thank you I’ve been waiting for this response video ever since he posted the first one.

[@emilyniedbala]

I’m so excited to see this video! When John’s TB video came out, I commented about this during the premiere, asking for a source as I was immediately suspicious of claims like this after watching so much CosTube content. I’m glad you are here to give us this clarification and that it made it to John and the team at Crash Course, too!

[@saraa3418]

I feel like the two of you would really enjoy doing a podcast about TB!

[@marychapel8916]

Great video as always! My boys were tested for TB in Singapore where they were born in the mid 1980’s. We lived in East Kalimantan at the time.

[@catewithac8978]

Your history is fascinating and your House-Creature is delightful! Thank you for making this.

[@toxic.forest]

I immediately thought of you when i watched john's video. I love love love his and hanks channels but was so bummed when i heard him talking about corsets.

[@catrinlewis939]

My grandfather's first wife died young of tuberculosis, back in the 1920s. It's sobering to think that had that not happened, I wouldn't exist.

[@rachelkiesser5406]

This is excellent!🙌 As soon as he mentioned the corsets I facepalmed. I knew amazing people would provide a more accurate telling of the history. Thank you for your work. I really hope you can meet with John one day and discuss this further. Would love to watch that.

[@penneycason9269]

From unpasteurised milk as well. I nursed tb patients. Been vaccinated 3x times. My grandmother had it. So my first vaccine was when I was so young I don’t remember. Enjoying your channel very much!

[@thoughtsofelizabeth]

There's a cosmetic surgeon who ran with the concept of "corsets were so unhealthy!" theme in one of his videos. A lot of us jumped all over him in the comments, citing people like you, abby cox, karolina zebrowska, prior attire and bernadette banner to support our arguments that he was wrong.

[@saskiacowan8962]

Just started watching the video but very excited!

[@My_mid-victorian_crisis]

TB is interesting. In 1935, when my father was born, premature and jaundiced, it was recommended that he be placed on a soft spot with a sunny window. The only bed in the house was being used as a sick bed for his aunt, who was recovering from an active case. So, as a newborn, my dad was exposed to TB and, until his death, he tested positive and had to get a chest x-ray to confirm that he was not active. I didn't learn this until the mid-90s when I tested positive when getting my food handlers license. I would also love to live long enough for some future fashion historian to blame the "waif" look of the 90s on HIV/AIDS the same why tuberculosis has been linked to fashion of the 1800s and 1900.

[@sophiejones3554]

Eh, people beat them to it. They blamed it on drugs at the time, mostly cocaine and heroin although ecstasy would also get a mention. People also used it, successfully, to get bans on advertising cigarettes (since smoking is linked to appetite suppression). The truth of it of course was just that everyone was copying Twiggy.

[@bhavens9149]

Always love your knowledgeable discourse.

[@taylormerrell8510]

Hey ive been waiting for a fashion correction video even since i watched the crash course video! Thank you!

[@GuiJiangjun]

You've just gained a new subscriber! I love crash course and this addendum/correction was so helpeful, well researched and complete, thank you!!

[@Emthe30something]

Thanks for this vid Nicole. It's needed in the discourse!

[@cherylstraub5970]

Thank you I objected to his statement about corsets. I appreciate the history information you give on this subject.

[@bogwife7942]

thanks so much for this. i really enjoyed that video and found it really well researched and thoughtful, which made the casual corset misinfo all the more frustrating!

[@kaza99]

I loved the crash course video when it came out, but I i was icked out when he was talking about the fashion history stuff. I thought it was very simplified and shallow, so I am so so happy to see this video exist!!

[@jaxn1221]

your insights and context are always appreciated!

[@JadieMarshall]

I fell down the TB rabbit hole when I first got diagnosed with RA when I had to get a TB test (thank God they have a blood test now and not a blister test) and much like John Green, it’s stayed a morbid interest

[@lillianb8762]

Thank you for making this, Nicole! I actually stopped watching the original video when it got to the corset bits because I was like "Oh, John didn't check his sources," but I sure as heck didn't do my thesis on the topic

[@craisins95]

I started watching the TB video and had to stop at the 19th century fashion part. I own and have read the book Consumptive Chic you link to in the video description and it gave me pause. I highly recommend the book.

[@amymyers5503]

YASSS, QUEEN! THANK YOU! I put out the call to costume tube for help in comments of John Green's video the day it dropped. You heard!

[@alexisasheep6554]

I love to see creators add to each other's content, especially when it's correcting some parts of a very important issue. It just teaches and helps out without negativity and I wish this was more common.

[@spiritualtruthseeker1947]

Precious dogger! Excellent video as always. Thanks for all the effort that you put into these.

[@renjon7798]

I'd love to read your thesis

[@NicoleRudolph]

digitalcommons.unl.edu/textilesdiss/12/

[@kaypgirl]

Oh no. I haven't watched the TB crash course yet, or this video, but did he perpetuate the shortening dress, nicer shoes thing b/c if dirty streets and TB thing again? I sent him Abby's tiktok ages ago about it, and he took that tweet down, but i guess he went back to it. Not entirely his fault, but more primary research was needed, dude.

[@NicoleRudolph]

Yeah. Unfortunately that myth is taken directly out of a published book on the history of TB, which is not about the fashion side of things but has all of a few pages on the topic which are not much more than "fun facts" with no context and big assumptions. So I get why he's saying that (it's not his idea), but it just shows how historians can be thorough in their field and completely resort to a priori for others.

[@splendidcolors]

@@NicoleRudolph Seeing a historian fail to dig into popular myths like just underlines how well you researched things like the origins of "pink is for girls, blue is for boys" which I had no idea went back and forth that much. And @TastingHistory goes into original sources to debunk popular myths about recipe origins.

[@willardprenfrew4303]

Great job on this video, Nicole! 💖💖💖

[@BBXcompany]

i hope this video gets to be even more widespread :) its great! 👍

[@megb9700]

Thank you for your thorough research and showing your sources!

[@xdarkeagle17x]

Love this video, also somehow in all the videos I've seen covering corsetry this is the first time I've seen that "A cutting wind" illustration (20:42) and it's amazing lmao

[@daisukidatotoro]

Very well done and informative.

[@Brewhouse4519]

You got a new subscriber! Loved this video and can't wait for more

[@elsbet1656]

I'd be very interested in a video watching you two nerd out about this subject😊

[@lisanorwoodtreefarm]

Probably needs to wait until after he's recovered from the turtles all the way down press junket ^_^

[@Downhomeherbwife]

I just watched the vid in your thumbnail last week!

[@Anthology_of_Holly]

I work for a small private clinical trial practice in Australia and we have to screen all our subjects for TB before they start trial medication. We usually find between 5-10 cases of TB a year in people who had no idea. We also find a lot of scabies- another disease people seem to think we left in ye olden times

[@kristenhurst683]

I very much enjoyed your presentation.

[@Art_911]

Once again, thanks for getting to the facts and misnomers of history.

[@FirstLast-iv2tc]

A very smart explanation. Very enjoyable as usual.

[@bunhelsingslegacy3549]

Thanks, that was really informative.

[@tenaoconnor7510]

Awesome video , interesting stuff I didn’t know. Loved all the pictures, took some screenshots of the lovely dresses and the hilarious ones. 😻 pup just wanted some screen time, funny burp 🤣 life would be so much less without our furkids ❤

[@therealgarfield]

Gave a like before even watching the video only because I know Nicole always provides information after in-depth research or practice, so first, thank you for the video and second, interesting topic (very on "trend" if that can be said?)!

[@meowsmyths]

genuinely thank you so much for this video- I'm dealing with some.... very odd and specific expressions of anger from my father rn (I'm 24 and he's being amazingly generous in paying for everything while I'm in school, but lately has been freaking out over small things like groceries), and the last part of this video is almost word-for-word. I'm glad to know its not new at least.... tho perhaps blaming "feminine inability to manage finances" instead of the sharp rise in food price is a new one.

[@DipityS]

Fascinating - absolutely fascinating. I learned so much from you about the ideas and beliefs and the common-sense of the time - as you said - it's all so much more complicated.

[@tinaeast2374]

Thank you for this wonderful video. My Grandma had TB so I to have always been interested in the effects of this subject matter. When I was studying I also did a research project into TB. The disease has influenced so much from opera, La Traviata, art, Edvard Munch, to law, Public Health Act 1921, in the UK. People do not think that TB is a disease of today so again thank you for brining this to people’s attention.❤

[@Meanness_Scar]

Thank you for making this video! I'm always looking for things about tuberculosis in older times because the historical person I admire the most passed away because of it (Okita Souji, the captain of the first squad of the Shinsengumi, passed away because of tuberculosis in 1868). How do you find your sources? Are there any reliable sources about tuberculosis in Japan, especially years 1842-1868? I deeply admire you^^ You are one of the greatest people of this times^^

[@kirstenpaff8946]

While equating morality and hygiene is on some level utterly stupid, I actually have a much better respect for this practice after going through the Plague Years. When you don't have an effective treatment/cure for a disease, then doing everything in your power to prevent you from catching and more importantly spreading that disease becomes a civic and moral obligation. Think of how moral pressure was put on people to wear masks. Obviously the Victorians had a healthy dose of classism mixed into their "cleanliness is next to godliness" ideal, but in a world without antibiotics or vaccines, keeping clean was one of the few things you could do to protect yourself and your community.

[@AngryTheatreMaker]

Great video! And I'm glad you heard back so soon from John Green.