Tuberculosis Shaped Victorian Fashion (2016)

So, for those interested in things like this, I can highly recommend John Green's recent "Everything is Tuberculosis." I bought it due to enjoying "the Anthropocene Reviewed", and... struggled with it, as this is a thoroughly depressing subject, but making it through the book was an educational experience, which I rate 4 out of 5 stars.

One of my grandparents survived tuberculosis, contracted via his father. His father died from it, and my grandpa spent much of his childhood in a sanatorium. He lived to 97.

A granduncle lost his leg to tuberculosis infection, and also spent his childhood in a sanatorium. He was declared an invalid in the 1920 census. However, he got an artificial leg and a cane (he refused to walk with a crutch), and became administrator for a sanatorium himself. Patient's accounts from the adults at the sanatorium (Vensmoen) are surprisingly positive. Despite the death and disability around them, they insisted they had a good time there, inspired by the companionship from other young people in the same situation, the competent concern from the doctors and the activities such as walks in the woods (naturally, not very long ones!).

The children though... I haven't heard any happy stories from there. They definitively don't look very happy in pictures either. There are probably some parallels to Covid lockdown worth exploring.

> The Victorian ideal of looking consumptive hasn’t survived to the current century

to the same degree

Romanticization of tuberculosis is certainly a fun little historical artifact. When there was no treatment or cure, it was almost elevated - like a proxy for the greater tragedy of human condition.

But once we figured tuberculosis out - figured out the cause, found the treatment, made a vaccine to prevent it? It became yet another disease. The romantic veer was shattered - if you had tuberculosis, it wasn't some great tragedy. It was now a sign that you were a lowlife who couldn't maintain good hygiene or access quality medicine.

Gives me hope that the current romanticization of mental illness or aging will, too, fade - once those diseases are well understood and can be cured reliably.

I used the tuberculosis argument against a design that included Corporate Memphis[1] 'cause "fashionable".

It was some time ago, but similar to tuberculosis I hope corporate memphis is now mostly gone.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Memphis

> Marie Duplessis, French courtesan and Parisian celebrity, was a striking Victorian beauty.

This is just so wrong and Anglo-centric, i.e. calling a woman living in 1840s Paris as "Victorian".

TB is one of those diseases that could have been completely eradicated but we just don't care. It's actually rather difficult to spread.

I look forward to next year when fashions in the United States will change as a response to TB running rampant because we've destroyed our public health infrastructure.

And still we have millions dying for this 100% curable disease. Which is getting even worse since the idiots currently in charge of the US government have decided to axe funding for USAID and other programs that are instrumental. But hey at least millionaires are getting a tax break, AI companies can do whatever the F they want and crypto bro's can keep partying so it's well worth it.