November 1, 2024 • 33 mins
Could tuberculosis truly shape our understanding of beauty? Prepare to unravel the eerie yet intriguing connection between this historical disease and the evolution of beauty standards across centuries. With Christina and Camille at the helm, we guide you through the pale, waif-like ideals of the 17th and 18th centuries, deeply entwined with TB’s impact. Drawing from Carolyn Day’s insightful work “Consumptive Chic,” we discuss how TB's haunting image inspired Victorian fashion and even shaped modern grooming habits, particularly influencing the preference for clean-shaven looks among men.
Explore the curious fusion of fashion, health, and societal perceptions as we dissect how TB influenced women's fashion choices. From the pointed corsets and makeup that mimicked the consumptive look, to the cultural shifts driven by food accessibility and public health initiatives, we reveal how a medical condition could transform clothing norms. Our conversation even takes a lighthearted turn, contemplating how TB sparked an enduring fascination with women’s shoes, leaving a lasting legacy on shopping habits.
Finally, we venture into the romanticized allure of TB during the 18th and 19th centuries, where the disease was bizarrely perceived as a beauty enhancer. Even Lord Byron used it in his courting repertoire! As we compare photographic studies of TB patients to healthy individuals, we set the stage for an upcoming discussion on the connection between vampire lore and the disease porphyria. Join us as we invite you to share your thoughts and engage with our community, preparing for more fascinating episodes that blend history, culture, and science.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
This is a podcast about One Health the idea that
the health of humans, animals,plants and the environment that
we all share are intrinsicallylinked.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Coming to you from the University of Texas Medical
Branch and the GalvestonNational Laboratory.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
This is Infectious Science.
Where enthusiasm for science?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
is contagious.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Welcome to another episode of the Infectious
Science podcast.
I have Christina here.
Hey, it's me.
How's it going?
Speaker 4 (00:36):
It's going well.
It's going well.
It's been quite the crazy week,I'm not going to lie, but this
weekend's coming, we're going tocatch up on schoolwork and all
things wild.
Catching up on schoolwork.
Oh yeah, that's a crazy weekendand hopefully next week will be
better.
So yeah, Alright.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
And then we have Camille Ledoux.
I just love saying your lastname.
Speaker 5 (00:55):
Great isn't it.
I always had French professorsat Cornell and they would start
to speak to me in French.
I was always like oh, bonjouris about the extent of where I
can go with that Croissant.
They're always so disappointedin me.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Happened more than once.
You're not from nobility, orwhat do you say from aristocrats
?
Not that I know, no.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
No, the farm in New York was not your castle.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
No it was not a castle.
But we're going to be talkingabout this today because we have
some really interesting topicstoday to talk about.
The first one is TB and Women'sbeauty standards.
Women's beauty standards sothere must be some historic
component to it, right?
Heck?
Speaker 4 (01:34):
yeah, nobility there you go, that's all right.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Dennis.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
You're forgiven, thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
And then we're going to be talking about another word
that I can't pronouncePorphyria and vampires.
Oh wow, excellent, who wants?
To start yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (01:50):
So I think it's interesting that you brought up
whether or not was tuberculosisa disease of the aristocracy,
and I would say tuberculosis wasa disease for everybody and
still is a disease for everybody, especially because it thrives
in crowded conditions.
So, particularly if you'rethinking of when a lot of the
standards around, like women'sbeauty being influenced by
tuberculosis, were forming inlike the 17 and 1800s, you can
(02:12):
certainly imagine like a crowdedcity at those times and TB just
spreading rapidly.
So while it was certainlysomething that could affect your
social status if you werewealthier and got it, it's
interesting how TB came to beperceived, and so that's what I
wanted to get into today on howTB has shaped women's beauty
standards and narratives and howthat continues into the modern
(02:33):
day, which I think is reallywild.
Yeah, so there's a bunch ofarticles on this, and the first
one I wanted to talk about isactually a Smithsonian article.
It's called how TuberculosisShaped Victorian Fashion, and so
basically they start off how,in the mid-1800s, tuberculosis
had reached really epidemiclevels in Europe and in the
United States.
We now know that TB isinfectious and damages the lungs
(02:54):
, is spread by respiratorydroplets, but that wasn't known
at that time and especiallybefore we had antibiotics,
victims of tuberculosis wouldslowly waste away and they would
become pale, really thin, andthen die of what was known at
the time as consumption, becausethey were literally being like
consumed by this disease.
And so what's interesting isthat between 1780 and 1850,
(03:16):
according to an assistantprofessor at Furman University
there was an increasing set ofcitation of tuberculosis that
becomes entwined with femininebeauty, which I think is really
interesting.
This person, carolyn Day,actually has a book called
Consumptive Chic a History ofFashion Beauty and Disease which
sounds like a book I need topick up.
Personally, I'll add that andlet it be my 70th book of the
(03:37):
year Are you on 69.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Now I am on 69 for a year.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
That's my girl, show off, you're just rubbing in it.
That's my girl.
Show off, show off.
You're just rubbing in it.
Speaker 5 (03:45):
No, we're not.
I'm not Maybe two, but I thinkthis could be really cool.
So the book is an explorationof how TB impacted early 19th
century British fashion andperceptions of beauty, which I
think is pretty cool.
What is interesting, though, iswe do have sources from this
time period that tell us how TBwas perceived and how it started
to be entwined with beauty,like this article talks about.
(04:06):
They say that there's a bookfrom 1909 called Tuberculosis, a
Treatise by American Authors onEtiology, pathology, frequency
Diagnosis, et cetera, et cetera,and in it they note that and
this is a quote a considerablenumber of patients have, and
have had for years previous totheir sickness, a, a delicate,
transparent skin, as well asfine, silky hair, and they talk
(04:28):
about how sparkling or dilatedeyes, rosy cheeks, red lips
these were all common intuberculosis patients, and there
are characteristics that, ifyou think about it, are caused
by a low-grade fever, whichtuberculosis can certainly cause
.
Blush Think about lipstick.
We still use these things.
But makeup's been around for areally long time and certainly
in England.
There's a English queen,elizabeth I this was like.
(04:51):
She was like died in the 1600s,but she had a half inch of
makeup on her face when she died.
So makeup's not amazing?
Speaker 4 (04:55):
Oh, my Atlanta, a half an inch.
Speaker 5 (04:58):
It was her mask of beauty or something.
Okay, kudos to her something.
It wouldn't go with the beard.
But, interestingly enough, tbwas not just on women's beauty
standards.
They also, once they realized,like what was causing
tuberculosis.
They thought that men's beardswere like breeding ground of the
bacteria.
And so there was, like thiswhole campaign, not only for
(05:19):
like women's beauty fashions butfor men, that they were like
you shouldn't have like scragglybeards.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Wow, so that helps establish the clean.
Clap man is what I'm hearing,maybe Interesting.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
I had two questions.
You were mentioning some reallycool stuff.
So first of all, what'sinteresting to me, or it's
confusing to me, is you saidthat people back then didn't
know how it was transmitted.
Right, like we, we youmentioned it's in crowded rooms,
so aerosol droplets and stufflike that, and that's why it's
transmitted easily.
But the way TB is portrayed inmovies, for example, is always
(05:53):
the focus on the blood that youcough up, right, the blood in
the sputum that comes out,wouldn't it?
And I would also assume thatyou cough more if you have TB.
Also assume that you cough moreif you have TB.
Wouldn't it be?
A one plus one equals twocalculation.
If you end up with cough andyou end up with coughing up
blood that you think thatsomebody would understand that's
the origin of your disease.
Speaker 5 (06:15):
It's interesting yeah , a lot of it was this idea of
miasma which is talked about inalmost all classes on diseases,
and it's this idea of like badair.
So maybe I don't know thatnecessarily they link that with
coughing, but the idea thatwhatever you were inhaling could
be dangerous to you wascertainly part of it.
And part of what was prescribedfor treatment for tuberculosis
for a very long time was go outto the country and get fresh air
(06:37):
.
So I think that it wasn't knownfor a while and I'll talk about
this that it was a bacteriumthat was causing it.
It was definitely somethingthat there was this kind of
notion that it was in the air.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Interesting.
The second question that Iwanted to ask you is you
mentioned that the red lips, thenice skin or what was the word?
The porcelain skin or whateveryou mentioned it was seen in
patients with TB, and it's mightbe due to low grade fever.
But isn't that interesting?
Because, like when you're sick,if you have a fever or
(07:10):
something like that, you don'tlook good, right.
So why would a low grade fevermake you look better?
Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 5 (07:19):
Yeah, yeah.
And it's interesting that itbecame so romanticized, because
now we think about it like ifyou have a fever, you're like
sweating, not looking great.
But I think it was more of thisidea that that women became
very fragile with it and itbecame very entwined with that.
And in fact, the fashion andProfessor Day talks about this,
where, when they wereinterviewing her for this
article, she talked about howlike elements of fashion start
(07:42):
to highlight the symptoms of thedisease article.
She talked about how likeelements of fashion start to
highlight the symptoms of thedisease.
So you start to see really likepointed corsets to emphasize,
like very narrow waist, you'revery skinny, the disease is
consuming you, you're wastingaway.
And she also talks about howmiddle and upper class women
would then start to like emulatethis consumptive appearance.
They would start to wear makeupto lighten their skin and
redden their lips and colortheir cheeks pink and just to
(08:05):
give that like consumptive look,which is really wild.
I also just want to make a notehere that this is also very
much tied into the history ofwomen's beauty standards,
specifically focusing on whitewomen, and that's inherently
racist and absolutely somethingthat isn't called out in any of
these articles that I read aboutthis, but it's something that I
just want to make a note ofthat TB likely also still has a
(08:27):
role in that.
That, like this idea of likevery pale, thin women is what's
beautiful.
It's definitely has thoseundertones.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
But the reason why you use lipstick and the Sprite
Red is it shows that there'smore blood flowing through the
lips, and that's the purpose ofrosy cheeks too, right, you have
more blood vessels that aredilated and bringing blood to
your cheeks.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
So I wonder if it's just like an innate thing, part
of our almost animalistic sidethat found those qualities or
characteristics to be attractive.
I'm not sure, because I'vealways wondered.
So you see these, let's say,greek statues of women, right,
or even the depictions ofgoddesses such as Aphrodite, I
always thought, wow, this isbeautiful because these women
(09:10):
are so much fuller than what wethink.
Yes, I have always thought that.
I've always been so surprised.
I'm like Aphrodite is supposedto be the most beautiful
creature in the universe,according to the Greeks, and she
is this incredibly like fullfigured woman and I thought that
was amazing.
And it did not make sense to mewhen I was younger because,
(09:32):
like you say, our beautystandards are thin, pale.
That is the epitome of beautystandards.
But then you see the epitome ofa beauty standard for these
ancient cultures and it wassomeone who was fuller and I
always wondered when did thattransition into the current
beauty standards that we have?
And I wonder if TB really was ahuge transitional point.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Yeah, Before you get to that, Camille, I would ask
you don't you think that culturestandards are also shifting,
Because back then maybe accessto food was not as plentiful as
it?
Speaker 1 (10:03):
is now.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
And if you're rich and if you're powerful you have
access to a lot of food morefood that you need for your
energy.
Than you're powerful, you'reattractive right, yeah, you have
the means to nourish your bodyeven more than you need.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
I agree, I agree, I think that's very interesting
yeah.
Speaker 5 (10:20):
Yeah, and I think, Christina, you're absolutely
right in that the beautystandards we see today are one,
especially with the level ofthinness, they are not
attainable by healthy people.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
It's not a reality.
I'm glad that it's somewhatchanging, but still needs a lot
of work.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
Slowly changing.
I certainly cannot saydefinitively that TV is what
brought us into falling in lovewith thinness, but it's
certainly a more recent aspect.
Right is what brought us intofalling in love with thinness,
but it's certainly a more recentaspect, right, 1700s, 1800s was
a while ago, but certainly muchmore recent than you know,
ancient Greece or something likethat.
And I'll talk a little bitabout the modern conclusions we
can draw from how TB has shapedmodern beauty standards.
(10:56):
At the end and I think that's areally interesting point to get
into but stepping away fromjust how women looked, tb also
influenced how women dressed.
From just how women looked, tbalso influenced how women
dressed, which I thought wasreally interesting.
So, upon the introduction ofgerm theory, once we stepped
away from this miasma theory,realized it was a bacteria that
was causing tuberculosis,preventing it became very
important.
Of course we were like, okay,we can prevent this.
(11:16):
And these really big publichealth campaigns targeted
women's fashions a lot of times,particularly the fact that
women were wearing like theselong trailing skirts and they
had this idea that you were likesweeping up germs and carrying
them into your home.
They were real, almost like aPSA as part of the public health
thing that they were like oh,you're sweeping up germs and
you're dragging them into yourhouse.
(11:37):
And corsets also came underattack because they were like oh
, you need to be able to breathefully yeah, otherwise you're
exacerbating tuberculosis,potentially because of the
movement of the lungs being soconstrained, because you're just
like suffocating, which alsowhat's interesting is that this
is when health corsets becamethings.
They're much more likeelasticated instead of boning
inside the corset to keep it somuch pressure.
What's interesting is they werelike don't wear these long
(11:59):
trailing skirts, you're spoofingup germs.
So you were basically able tohave a little bit of a higher
hemline to show your ankles.
I say that I don't truly knowif you could show your ankles or
not.
Something like that.
We're getting close to it,that's for sure.
We're getting closer.
But you could suddenly seewomen's shoes.
So women's shoes actuallybecame like a thing.
(12:19):
So the fact that we have thisobsession.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
I was about to say so .
I have tuberculosis to blamefor my low bank account.
Oh goodness.
Speaker 5 (12:30):
See, there you go If you have a shoe shopping
addiction.
It started because we hadhigher hemlines and tuberculosis
, so you weren't sweeping upthose germs Darn, which I think
is really interesting, becauseshoe style suddenly became like
an important part of a woman'soverall look, because you can
see them.
They weren't just covered bylike these voluminous skirts.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
That is so interesting.
I never would have put two andtwo together.
Speaker 5 (12:52):
Another thing you might find really wild, which I
didn't know until I was readingthese articles, is that at the
same time that this kind of likeraising of the hemlines was
happening, doctors startedprescribing sunbathing as a
treatment for tuberculosis, andthis has given rise to the
modern phenomenon of tanning.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
Interesting to see how it changes from someone
who's incredibly pale yes, thatis a beauty standard to someone
who's like golden tan, and thatis now a new beauty standard All
from the same disease Reallyinteresting.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
I heard the story and maybe this is multifaceted, but
I also heard the story that thevery white skin color, the pale
skin color, or the porcelain,which was 200, 300, 400 years
ago, was associated witharistocrats.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
Yeah, absolutely, because they didn't have to be
outside working.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
You're not a redneck because you're in the sun,
working in the sun.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
And I think that, too , translates into other cultures
, even if they weren'tnecessarily in touch with each
other.
I know that that was alsosomething that was very
predominant in Eastern culturesas well.
Like the same thing, right thelighter and fairer complected
you were.
That had a huge commentary onyour social status as well, so
it's interesting to see how skincolor this could be a whole
(14:07):
podcast in itself, but skincolor has so much commentary on
someone's social statusthroughout history, it should be
a whole season not only one.
I agree.
Yeah, that'd be a really longpodcast and with some people
that are more qualified than notAbsolutely, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 5 (14:21):
Yeah, All very fascinating and interesting
things to dive into.
I also just wanted to touchback on this idea that
tuberculosis became romanticizedin this way.
That it was interesting.
I found this journal articleabout it actually, which I was
like, yeah, someone's written ajournal, Like I'm glad that
someone has written, like ajournal of TB and beauty
standards.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
No, it's like a whole journal.
Speaker 5 (14:41):
It was called.
Even in Death she is Beautiful,confronting Tuberculosis in Art
, literature and Medicine.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
And I was like, oh OK .
Speaker 5 (14:50):
So I was reading this morning, and what they were
talking about is how upper classwomen who contracted the
disease were then, like, judgedaccording to their
attractiveness.
And it was like a wastingdisease, right, tuberculosis,
because it was a wasting diseasethey were like.
It enhances your, like female,beauty standards if you become
incredibly pale and waxy.
Who wants to be like waxy?
I feel like people activelyavoid that, but I guess that was
the thing in Victorian England.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
I literally could not think of anything worse to be
caring about while I am wastingaway from tuberculosis.
Speaker 5 (15:19):
Do I look waxy enough ?
Do I look waxy?
Am I waxy?
It gets better, it gets better.
You just wait.
Is it giving bed baths?
And so I think what'sinteresting is that in this
journal article they say thattowards the end of the 18th
century, tuberculosis wasidentified as a disease which
promoted beauty in women andconferred beauty upon its
(15:40):
sufferer, and so the waif-likeconsumptive was dramatically
pale, very thin, red cheeks,bright eyes of fever, and that
it became really fashionable tolook that way and that good
health was basically ordinary,like you were so earthly if you
were in good health, Whereas ifyou had tuberculosis you were
ethereal and you were artisticand there was something about it
(16:00):
and it was really wild.
And what's interesting is thatsomeone did a study of
tuberculosis by takingphotographic portraits of people
with TB and comparing them tolike people without TB.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Did they have those photos in the journal article
they?
Speaker 5 (16:15):
did Some of them.
They were composites, which itwas really wild, and of course
the ones that they were showingwere of women.
But it was interesting thatthere was one physician and then
one guy who was a sir.
I don't know if he's a sir,make you a lord.
I have no idea what this means.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
Back, in the day Knighted, knighted.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
Okay, I don't know.
So they had this photographicstudio at a hospital in London
and they took pictures of over400 people aged 15 to 40, and
442 portraits of TB patientswere obtained from three
hospitals.
And then they did another 200people that also didn't have the
disease and they werephotographed and the images were
grouped together and theybasically ended up, I think,
(16:50):
with saying this was notconclusive of anything, because
for a while I think the beliefthat was TB was hereditary,
which it can look that way,right, because, like, ok, if one
person dies all these otherpeople have taken care of them
right in their families, they'realso likely to come down with
it.
(17:12):
No-transcript a portrait ofpeople with this disease.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
Does it make them more beautiful?
Let's compare.
Speaker 5 (17:20):
It's wild, it's wild.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Yeah, this reminds me .
Just to infuse this with alittle bit of pop culture, I
have this movie on my Netflixlist that I need to watch, and
it's supposedly about a guy whogoes to Hungary or Romania or
something like that and takespictures of people that
contracted 1918 flu and weredying of 1918 flu oh interesting
(17:42):
, so I'll let you guys know howthe movie is.
Speaker 5 (17:44):
That sounds very interesting.
Is it based on a true story?
Speaker 3 (17:47):
I think it's a.
No, it's a horror movie.
Speaker 5 (17:50):
But hey, I like pathogen horror.
That'd be wild, though, likethe 1918 flu that was some rough
stuff, I wouldn't be takingphotos of the people.
I would be like this is not asuper safe environment for me to
be in.
Wow, absolutely, that's wild.
So I just I had to add this inTu.
I just I had to add this inTuberculosis was so romanticized
it became a pickup line.
It became a pickup line.
(18:12):
And I checked multiple sourcesfor this because I was like this
can't, this can't be real, noone can be this dramatic.
This man was this dramatic.
So if you're ready, romanticpoet Lord Byron wanted to die of
consumption and he has said tohave told a friend how pale I
look.
I should like, I think, to dieof consumption because then the
woman would all say see thatpoor Byron, how interesting he
(18:36):
looks in dying.
Wow, can you imagine.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
But why is that a pickup line, though?
Speaker 5 (18:42):
But that is a pickup line he wants women to be like.
How pale and ethereal andtuberculous he looks, while
dying.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
That's a pickup line, wouldn't you say?
Speaker 3 (18:51):
That is good.
Speaker 5 (18:51):
That's something, or at least a desire to like be,
like wow, I don't know, I justthink that's wild.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
Yeah, that is incredible.
Speaker 5 (18:59):
Anyways.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
And it also shows how superficial humankind has
always been.
I'm not going to.
Speaker 5 (19:05):
You know what I mean.
He would rather die coughing upblood, just so women would be
like how sickly he looks.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
Wow, so sickly, so handsome in his sickness.
Speaker 5 (19:14):
In death.
Speaker 4 (19:15):
Yes, yeah, anyways.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Romanticizing death.
Romanticizing death.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Isn't that an entire?
You could write a PhD off ofthat.
Yeah, that's still a, thing,right, yeah?
Speaker 5 (19:25):
Absolutely Anyways.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
Absolutely.
That's still a thing, right,yeah, absolutely, anyways.
So off of this conversation ofTB and beauty standards and how
beauty standards themselves haveevolved throughout time, I'm
going to take this in anotherdirection and talk about how the
lore of vampires has actuallyevolved over time, and this is
what Dennis was touching on atthe beginning.
My topic of the day is going tobe Porphyria and vampires.
(19:50):
So originally, vampires, fromwhat I could see in my research,
can be traced way, way back,and some of the original stories
that at least had to do with acharacter that resembled a
vampire, traced back to ancientGreece, with the Empusa, I
believe, is how you pronounce it, or even Strix, and that traces
all the way back to about 4500BC, as late as then.
(20:11):
That's incredibly early that weeven began having some lore
about some kind of vampirishfigure.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
So was it.
They didn't use the wordvampire, but was it a
description of a human in theneed for blood or the urge to
drink blood?
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Yeah, so the Strix character was apparently a bat
with a human head that wouldfeed off of the blood of humans,
essentially from what Iremember Now.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
I have a Halloween costume idea.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
Yeah, I was going to say that is a disturbing image.
I feel like, yeah, that makesme think of what we do in the
shadows oh my God, when they'relike trying to turn into a bat,
like Guillermo hasn't quitegotten it, and then he's just
like bat, but he's like halfhuman and half bat.
Okay, so good to know thatthey're actually drawing from
real lore for that, if youhaven't watched what we do in
the shadows.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Please watch it.
It's great.
Please watch it, one of myfavorite shows of all time.
Speaker 5 (21:05):
Great vampire comedy.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Okay, what's, what is it against?
Tell me what we do in theshadows.
Okay, there's a movie andthere's a TV series.
Speaker 5 (21:15):
We'll be putting this in the show notes with the
articles.
There's a movie.
That's how it came out.
It's originally based on amovie.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
Oh my goodness.
Okay, just know it definitelygot the sexual undertones in the
show.
Overtones for our listeners, sobe aware of that.
But it really is a very funnyTV show and movie.
I would assume I haven't seenthe movie though, but anyway.
Going back to vampire lore, sothe actual vampire as we know,
it didn't really become a thinguntil about the 18th century,
(21:40):
and that's when we started tohear about stories of this
figure with the sharp pointedteeth, with full head of hair,
pale and nosferatu, yes,nosferatu, and I actually have
some notes about sweet nosferatu.
Speaker 5 (21:56):
Okay, is nosferatu a german word it's a german movie,
that's for sure.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Yeah, but it's the latin name.
Speaker 5 (22:01):
Oh, it's a latin name there's a new nosferatu coming
out at the end of the year.
I heard of that it's supposedto be like horror.
I meant to watch the trailerlast night and I got too spooked
, so I stopped.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Who's in it?
Who's playing Nosferatu?
Speaker 5 (22:13):
I don't know, I didn't get that far.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Is it like?
I don't know?
Speaker 5 (22:16):
It was scary.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
So I thought it'd be good to just touch on exactly
what Porphyria is and then giveexamples of vampire descriptions
from literature and also fromcinema that kind of allow us to
compare the actual disease andthe disease presentation to this
vampire lore.
So porphyria is actually adisease that is due to a lack of
(22:42):
an enzyme in the synthesis ofporphyrin 9, which is the
protein that combines with ironto form heme.
And if you don't know what hemeis the oxygen carrying molecule
within a red blood cell.
It's really important part ofthe red blood cell, right?
And if you don't have porphyrinnine, you will be anemic.
(23:03):
And what happens when you'reanemic?
You tend to have what's calledpallor, right.
So you have a very distinctivepallor.
You're very white, You're verypale, you also don't feel good.
You also really don't feel good.
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
So basically to summarize that you would say you
just cannot make Mature redblood cells.
Red blood cells.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
Yeah, exactly, you can't make them.
Well, at least.
Speaker 5 (23:25):
It's interesting, though, it is a disease that's
compatible with life.
Like you can live with this.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
These red blood cells produce this immature porphyrin
and then they release it andthe porphyrin gathers in the
skin and what happens is whenyou come into contact with
sunlight, it causes theporphyrin yeah, it causes the
porphyrin to release freeradicals and that reacts in your
body to cause blistering, tocause pain, to cause scaling
(23:52):
skin.
It's really incredible.
So I wrote down some of thesymptoms and I'll list them off.
So burning pain when exposed tolight, sudden painful redness
and swelling blisters on theexposed skin and then also,
interestingly enough, excesshair growth in those commonly
affected areas.
So when you think about it, itmakes sense, right, because your
body's trying all it can tohide the skin from the sunlight.
(24:14):
So it makes sense that youwould grow a little bit more
hair, right In those areas.
That's why we have a lot ofhair on our heads, right,
because our heads are exposed tothe most sunlight.
That's cool.
I think that's what I've heard.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
I'm not sure that was like one of the evolutionary
what's what I think is kind ofweirdest, and then totally
sidetracking here.
That's weird.
I think we're the onlymammalian where we have
constantly growing hair.
Right, every other mammal has acertain length and it stops,
but like our hair, just keepsgrowing right, interesting, I
didn't think about that.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
That's interesting I always thought it was an
insulation thing.
If you're in the colds, thenyou're.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
You don't lose I think it is also an insulation
thing, but I think anotherAll-side purpose yes exactly
that's evolution for you, okay.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
So, christina, I just wanted to ask you a question.
So the substance porphyrin isthe name, right.
So that gets into the skin andstays in the skin.
Yeah, does it change the colorof the skin?
Speaker 4 (25:05):
Not necessarily no, but what it does and what it can
do, is actually deposit in theteeth, and so porphyrin in the
teeth will give the teeth thislike reddish color, okay, and
then it also, interestinglyenough, causes your teeth to
fluoresce under UV light.
Oh, wow, I didn't know that.
No-transcript when we read.
(25:25):
Let's move on to Bram Stoker'sDracula description.
Right, so this was written in1897.
And I'm just going to read alittle excerpt that I wrote down
.
So it says the mouth was ratherfixed and cruel looking, with
peculiarly sharp white teeth.
The rest of his ears were paleand the tops extremely pointed.
The general effect was one ofextraordinary pallor.
I had noticed the backs of hishands as they lay on his knees
(25:49):
in the firelight and they seemedrather white and fine.
So that's just a huge emphasison his pallor, right On the
paleness of his skin.
And actually it was not a thing, at least in Bram Stoker's
Dracula, that Dracula himselfwas affected by the light.
That did not become a hugething until Nosferatu came out,
(26:09):
and so Nosferatu is what startedthe idea that vampires would
essentially burn in the sun.
What Bram Stroker's Dracula didinstead was become a little bit
weaker, so he was basically aregular human in the sun, and
that's how he presented himselfduring the day, but at night he
gained this like superhumanstrength and became the vampire
Dracula.
Speaker 5 (26:29):
The original is really worth reading.
I really want to read it andit's not as dense as like some
books written during that timeperiod where they're like you're
looking at the English andyou're like, oh, this is like
Frankenstein's also worthreading, but it's like in older
English and it's very like it'sjust long exposition.
It's worth reading, but Draculais not like that.
It's really it's good.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
I very.
Speaker 5 (26:53):
For me it's worth reading but Dracula is not like
that.
It's really.
It's good.
I really want to read it.
After reading these excerpts, Ithought it was very easy, at
least for older books, to follow.
It won't read like horror toyou, though, because if you've
seen anything with horror now,it's not scary in any way, but
back in the day.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
Just a little bit of pop culture infusion here again.
Just my opinion.
Gary Oldman's performance in1992's Bram Stoker is the best.
Speaker 5 (27:10):
For me the best Dracula ever you don't think
it's Bela Lugosi.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
No, yeah, just it's my opinion.
Speaker 5 (27:16):
Okay, okay, I guess you can have that opinion, not
like an entire goth culture hasbeen made around Bela Lugosi's
dead.
It's okay, all right.
All right, moving on sopassionate, I see you
differently now.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
That's hilarious, but I guess, talking about the
blistering skin, going back toPorphyria and the connection to
vampires and Nosferatu the maincharacter, which I guess his
name was Orlok that movie wascreated in 1922.
Yeah, slyden movie right, yes,and the character Orlok in the
end ends up burning because hespends the entire evening,
(27:54):
essentially in the entire nightby the side of this beautiful
woman, instead of killing herand drinking her blood.
Speaker 5 (27:59):
Right Did she have TB ?
We'll never know.
We'll never know.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
Because it was silent and it was probably black and
white.
It was handsy.
Her reddish lips, yeah, wecouldn't say.
And so that was more of acommentary, apparently, on just
the evil that Orlok himselfdepicted being overcome by
innocence and morality.
That spun future lore,essentially, and crafted this
(28:30):
narrative of the vampire thenbeing, incredibly like, averted
to sunlight.
And so that's where we get ourmodern day vampire that can't go
out into the sun.
I don't know if it'stechnically our modern day
vampire anymore, because I thinkedward cullen is more the
modern day vampire now they're abetter modern day vampire.
Now they're a better modern dayvampire, but I would say the
classic vampire that we all know, that that really helped shape
(28:53):
that character and so we see alot of those striking
similarities between Porphyriaand the incredibly delicate
aversion to sun that thosepatients have with the depiction
of the classic vampire that weall know.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Yeah, very cool, very cool.
Yeah, when did the whole batsituation evolve?
Because there are bats thatdrink blood, but it's just a few
species, right?
Speaker 5 (29:18):
Yeah, I have always wondered about their microbiomes
.
What is their microbiome?
Like that they can break downblood.
Like the microbiome of a leechor a vampire bat?
Like that they can break downblood.
It must be, I feel like it mustbe so unique compared to
animals that are just eatinglike plants or like meat or
something.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Yeah, or it's ticks.
Speaker 5 (29:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
That's so interesting because our body, our bodies,
we eat food right and we breakfood down for its biomolecular
components that we need.
You know what I mean.
But bats and these animals thatjust drink the blood directly,
like they are getting thosenutrients.
They don't have to really likebreak down anything, they just
have to absorb.
When you think about it, that'sso interesting to me.
Or at least they break down alot less than what other animals
(30:00):
and mammals have to break down.
That's very interesting.
That's something to look into.
Good point, Camille.
I've always been curious.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Yeah.
There's not that many animalsthat that do that?
That's true, yeah, and if yousee, what I always thought was
really curious, the the batsthat drink blood where they they
have to land right and thenthey bite cows or something like
that and they lick it up yeah,and they lick it up and they're
put in a very vulnerable stateon the ground right.
they're obviously much better inin air or in an arboreal
(30:30):
setting, and so they putthemselves in this very
vulnerable situation to accessthe blood.
I thought it was always verycurious.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
So they don't actually suck the blood, they
just bite blood comes out andthey lick it up.
Speaker 5 (30:41):
Wow, I did not know that they're not like mosquitoes
or something.
Speaker 4 (30:45):
Interesting Huh.
You'll learn something newevery day.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they also
have something in their salivathat makes the bite less.
Like an anticoagulant, yeah,and numbs the bite side.
I think I could be wrong, Idon't know, I'm not sure.
Interesting, wow, so cool, it'svery cool.
So are we going to find all thearticles and all that stuff
that you guys referenced in theshow notes, or can you put them
in the show notes, sure?
Speaker 4 (31:10):
Mine's really just going to be Dracula, the book by
Bram Stoker, but I'll put alink there for sure.
Yeah, because it's worthreading.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
It really is.
What about you?
Is your source for the Greekstuff?
Speaker 4 (31:21):
I'll put some.
Yeah, I think one of them was aSmithsonian article, I believe,
so I will definitely link thatas well.
Speaker 5 (31:27):
Yeah, I have a couple of links to add, but there you
have it.
Speaker 4 (31:30):
Yeah, pop culture references too that have to do
with beauty standards, and then,or who's the best Dracula.
I love it, but I hope thateveryone enjoyed this kind of
section of the podcast that wedid on folklore and its
connection to science and theworld around us, because I
thought it was fascinating tolearn about these different
(31:50):
connections for sure.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Yeah, if you liked it , just let us know, drop us a
line or send us a message andlet us know if you want to hear
more about Dracula and beautystandards and TB.
And yeah, all right, thanks,guys.
Speaker 4 (32:05):
Thanks for listening.
Thanks for listening.
Let us know what you want tohear in the comments.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Thanks for listening.
Thanks for listening.
Let us know what you want tohear in the comments.
Thanks for listening to theInfectious Science podcast.
Be sure to hit subscribe andvisit infectiousscienceorg to
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Speaker 1 (32:21):
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Speaker 2 (32:31):
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To get in touch, drop a line inthe comments section or send us
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Speaker 1 (32:39):
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Thank you.
This is a podcast about One Health the idea that
the health of humans, animals,plants and the environment that
we all share are intrinsicallylinked.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Coming to you from the University of Texas Medical
Branch and the GalvestonNational Laboratory.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
This is Infectious Science.
Where enthusiasm for science?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
is contagious.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Welcome to another episode of the Infectious
Science podcast.
I have Christina here.
Hey, it's me.
How's it going?
Speaker 4 (00:36):
It's going well.
It's going well.
It's been quite the crazy week,I'm not going to lie, but this
weekend's coming, we're going tocatch up on schoolwork and all
things wild.
Catching up on schoolwork.
Oh yeah, that's a crazy weekendand hopefully next week will be
better.
So yeah, Alright.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
And then we have Camille Ledoux.
I just love saying your lastname.
Speaker 5 (00:55):
Great isn't it.
I always had French professorsat Cornell and they would start
to speak to me in French.
I was always like oh, bonjouris about the extent of where I
can go with that Croissant.
They're always so disappointedin me.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Happened more than once.
You're not from nobility, orwhat do you say from aristocrats
?
Not that I know, no.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
No, the farm in New York was not your castle.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
No it was not a castle.
But we're going to be talkingabout this today because we have
some really interesting topicstoday to talk about.
The first one is TB and Women'sbeauty standards.
Women's beauty standards sothere must be some historic
component to it, right?
Heck?
Speaker 4 (01:34):
yeah, nobility there you go, that's all right.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Dennis.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
You're forgiven, thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
And then we're going to be talking about another word
that I can't pronouncePorphyria and vampires.
Oh wow, excellent, who wants?
To start yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (01:50):
So I think it's interesting that you brought up
whether or not was tuberculosisa disease of the aristocracy,
and I would say tuberculosis wasa disease for everybody and
still is a disease for everybody, especially because it thrives
in crowded conditions.
So, particularly if you'rethinking of when a lot of the
standards around, like women'sbeauty being influenced by
tuberculosis, were forming inlike the 17 and 1800s, you can
(02:12):
certainly imagine like a crowdedcity at those times and TB just
spreading rapidly.
So while it was certainlysomething that could affect your
social status if you werewealthier and got it, it's
interesting how TB came to beperceived, and so that's what I
wanted to get into today on howTB has shaped women's beauty
standards and narratives and howthat continues into the modern
(02:33):
day, which I think is reallywild.
Yeah, so there's a bunch ofarticles on this, and the first
one I wanted to talk about isactually a Smithsonian article.
It's called how TuberculosisShaped Victorian Fashion, and so
basically they start off how,in the mid-1800s, tuberculosis
had reached really epidemiclevels in Europe and in the
United States.
We now know that TB isinfectious and damages the lungs
(02:54):
, is spread by respiratorydroplets, but that wasn't known
at that time and especiallybefore we had antibiotics,
victims of tuberculosis wouldslowly waste away and they would
become pale, really thin, andthen die of what was known at
the time as consumption, becausethey were literally being like
consumed by this disease.
And so what's interesting isthat between 1780 and 1850,
(03:16):
according to an assistantprofessor at Furman University
there was an increasing set ofcitation of tuberculosis that
becomes entwined with femininebeauty, which I think is really
interesting.
This person, carolyn Day,actually has a book called
Consumptive Chic a History ofFashion Beauty and Disease which
sounds like a book I need topick up.
Personally, I'll add that andlet it be my 70th book of the
(03:37):
year Are you on 69.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Now I am on 69 for a year.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
That's my girl, show off, you're just rubbing in it.
That's my girl.
Show off, show off.
You're just rubbing in it.
Speaker 5 (03:45):
No, we're not.
I'm not Maybe two, but I thinkthis could be really cool.
So the book is an explorationof how TB impacted early 19th
century British fashion andperceptions of beauty, which I
think is pretty cool.
What is interesting, though, iswe do have sources from this
time period that tell us how TBwas perceived and how it started
to be entwined with beauty,like this article talks about.
(04:06):
They say that there's a bookfrom 1909 called Tuberculosis, a
Treatise by American Authors onEtiology, pathology, frequency
Diagnosis, et cetera, et cetera,and in it they note that and
this is a quote a considerablenumber of patients have, and
have had for years previous totheir sickness, a, a delicate,
transparent skin, as well asfine, silky hair, and they talk
(04:28):
about how sparkling or dilatedeyes, rosy cheeks, red lips
these were all common intuberculosis patients, and there
are characteristics that, ifyou think about it, are caused
by a low-grade fever, whichtuberculosis can certainly cause
.
Blush Think about lipstick.
We still use these things.
But makeup's been around for areally long time and certainly
in England.
There's a English queen,elizabeth I this was like.
(04:51):
She was like died in the 1600s,but she had a half inch of
makeup on her face when she died.
So makeup's not amazing?
Speaker 4 (04:55):
Oh, my Atlanta, a half an inch.
Speaker 5 (04:58):
It was her mask of beauty or something.
Okay, kudos to her something.
It wouldn't go with the beard.
But, interestingly enough, tbwas not just on women's beauty
standards.
They also, once they realized,like what was causing
tuberculosis.
They thought that men's beardswere like breeding ground of the
bacteria.
And so there was, like thiswhole campaign, not only for
(05:19):
like women's beauty fashions butfor men, that they were like
you shouldn't have like scragglybeards.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Wow, so that helps establish the clean.
Clap man is what I'm hearing,maybe Interesting.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
I had two questions.
You were mentioning some reallycool stuff.
So first of all, what'sinteresting to me, or it's
confusing to me, is you saidthat people back then didn't
know how it was transmitted.
Right, like we, we youmentioned it's in crowded rooms,
so aerosol droplets and stufflike that, and that's why it's
transmitted easily.
But the way TB is portrayed inmovies, for example, is always
(05:53):
the focus on the blood that youcough up, right, the blood in
the sputum that comes out,wouldn't it?
And I would also assume thatyou cough more if you have TB.
Also assume that you cough moreif you have TB.
Wouldn't it be?
A one plus one equals twocalculation.
If you end up with cough andyou end up with coughing up
blood that you think thatsomebody would understand that's
the origin of your disease.
Speaker 5 (06:15):
It's interesting yeah , a lot of it was this idea of
miasma which is talked about inalmost all classes on diseases,
and it's this idea of like badair.
So maybe I don't know thatnecessarily they link that with
coughing, but the idea thatwhatever you were inhaling could
be dangerous to you wascertainly part of it.
And part of what was prescribedfor treatment for tuberculosis
for a very long time was go outto the country and get fresh air
(06:37):
.
So I think that it wasn't knownfor a while and I'll talk about
this that it was a bacteriumthat was causing it.
It was definitely somethingthat there was this kind of
notion that it was in the air.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Interesting.
The second question that Iwanted to ask you is you
mentioned that the red lips, thenice skin or what was the word?
The porcelain skin or whateveryou mentioned it was seen in
patients with TB, and it's mightbe due to low grade fever.
But isn't that interesting?
Because, like when you're sick,if you have a fever or
(07:10):
something like that, you don'tlook good, right.
So why would a low grade fevermake you look better?
Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 5 (07:19):
Yeah, yeah.
And it's interesting that itbecame so romanticized, because
now we think about it like ifyou have a fever, you're like
sweating, not looking great.
But I think it was more of thisidea that that women became
very fragile with it and itbecame very entwined with that.
And in fact, the fashion andProfessor Day talks about this,
where, when they wereinterviewing her for this
article, she talked about howlike elements of fashion start
(07:42):
to highlight the symptoms of thedisease article.
She talked about how likeelements of fashion start to
highlight the symptoms of thedisease.
So you start to see really likepointed corsets to emphasize,
like very narrow waist, you'revery skinny, the disease is
consuming you, you're wastingaway.
And she also talks about howmiddle and upper class women
would then start to like emulatethis consumptive appearance.
They would start to wear makeupto lighten their skin and
redden their lips and colortheir cheeks pink and just to
(08:05):
give that like consumptive look,which is really wild.
I also just want to make a notehere that this is also very
much tied into the history ofwomen's beauty standards,
specifically focusing on whitewomen, and that's inherently
racist and absolutely somethingthat isn't called out in any of
these articles that I read aboutthis, but it's something that I
just want to make a note ofthat TB likely also still has a
(08:27):
role in that.
That, like this idea of likevery pale, thin women is what's
beautiful.
It's definitely has thoseundertones.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
But the reason why you use lipstick and the Sprite
Red is it shows that there'smore blood flowing through the
lips, and that's the purpose ofrosy cheeks too, right, you have
more blood vessels that aredilated and bringing blood to
your cheeks.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
So I wonder if it's just like an innate thing, part
of our almost animalistic sidethat found those qualities or
characteristics to be attractive.
I'm not sure, because I'vealways wondered.
So you see these, let's say,greek statues of women, right,
or even the depictions ofgoddesses such as Aphrodite, I
always thought, wow, this isbeautiful because these women
(09:10):
are so much fuller than what wethink.
Yes, I have always thought that.
I've always been so surprised.
I'm like Aphrodite is supposedto be the most beautiful
creature in the universe,according to the Greeks, and she
is this incredibly like fullfigured woman and I thought that
was amazing.
And it did not make sense to mewhen I was younger because,
(09:32):
like you say, our beautystandards are thin, pale.
That is the epitome of beautystandards.
But then you see the epitome ofa beauty standard for these
ancient cultures and it wassomeone who was fuller and I
always wondered when did thattransition into the current
beauty standards that we have?
And I wonder if TB really was ahuge transitional point.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Yeah, Before you get to that, Camille, I would ask
you don't you think that culturestandards are also shifting,
Because back then maybe accessto food was not as plentiful as
it?
Speaker 1 (10:03):
is now.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
And if you're rich and if you're powerful you have
access to a lot of food morefood that you need for your
energy.
Than you're powerful, you'reattractive right, yeah, you have
the means to nourish your bodyeven more than you need.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
I agree, I agree, I think that's very interesting
yeah.
Speaker 5 (10:20):
Yeah, and I think, Christina, you're absolutely
right in that the beautystandards we see today are one,
especially with the level ofthinness, they are not
attainable by healthy people.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
It's not a reality.
I'm glad that it's somewhatchanging, but still needs a lot
of work.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
Slowly changing.
I certainly cannot saydefinitively that TV is what
brought us into falling in lovewith thinness, but it's
certainly a more recent aspect.
Right is what brought us intofalling in love with thinness,
but it's certainly a more recentaspect, right, 1700s, 1800s was
a while ago, but certainly muchmore recent than you know,
ancient Greece or something likethat.
And I'll talk a little bitabout the modern conclusions we
can draw from how TB has shapedmodern beauty standards.
(10:56):
At the end and I think that's areally interesting point to get
into but stepping away fromjust how women looked, tb also
influenced how women dressed.
From just how women looked, tbalso influenced how women
dressed, which I thought wasreally interesting.
So, upon the introduction ofgerm theory, once we stepped
away from this miasma theory,realized it was a bacteria that
was causing tuberculosis,preventing it became very
important.
Of course we were like, okay,we can prevent this.
(11:16):
And these really big publichealth campaigns targeted
women's fashions a lot of times,particularly the fact that
women were wearing like theselong trailing skirts and they
had this idea that you were likesweeping up germs and carrying
them into your home.
They were real, almost like aPSA as part of the public health
thing that they were like oh,you're sweeping up germs and
you're dragging them into yourhouse.
(11:37):
And corsets also came underattack because they were like oh
, you need to be able to breathefully yeah, otherwise you're
exacerbating tuberculosis,potentially because of the
movement of the lungs being soconstrained, because you're just
like suffocating, which alsowhat's interesting is that this
is when health corsets becamethings.
They're much more likeelasticated instead of boning
inside the corset to keep it somuch pressure.
What's interesting is they werelike don't wear these long
(11:59):
trailing skirts, you're spoofingup germs.
So you were basically able tohave a little bit of a higher
hemline to show your ankles.
I say that I don't truly knowif you could show your ankles or
not.
Something like that.
We're getting close to it,that's for sure.
We're getting closer.
But you could suddenly seewomen's shoes.
So women's shoes actuallybecame like a thing.
(12:19):
So the fact that we have thisobsession.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
I was about to say so .
I have tuberculosis to blamefor my low bank account.
Oh goodness.
Speaker 5 (12:30):
See, there you go If you have a shoe shopping
addiction.
It started because we hadhigher hemlines and tuberculosis
, so you weren't sweeping upthose germs Darn, which I think
is really interesting, becauseshoe style suddenly became like
an important part of a woman'soverall look, because you can
see them.
They weren't just covered bylike these voluminous skirts.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
That is so interesting.
I never would have put two andtwo together.
Speaker 5 (12:52):
Another thing you might find really wild, which I
didn't know until I was readingthese articles, is that at the
same time that this kind of likeraising of the hemlines was
happening, doctors startedprescribing sunbathing as a
treatment for tuberculosis, andthis has given rise to the
modern phenomenon of tanning.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
Interesting to see how it changes from someone
who's incredibly pale yes, thatis a beauty standard to someone
who's like golden tan, and thatis now a new beauty standard All
from the same disease Reallyinteresting.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
I heard the story and maybe this is multifaceted, but
I also heard the story that thevery white skin color, the pale
skin color, or the porcelain,which was 200, 300, 400 years
ago, was associated witharistocrats.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
Yeah, absolutely, because they didn't have to be
outside working.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
You're not a redneck because you're in the sun,
working in the sun.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
And I think that, too , translates into other cultures
, even if they weren'tnecessarily in touch with each
other.
I know that that was alsosomething that was very
predominant in Eastern culturesas well.
Like the same thing, right thelighter and fairer complected
you were.
That had a huge commentary onyour social status as well, so
it's interesting to see how skincolor this could be a whole
(14:07):
podcast in itself, but skincolor has so much commentary on
someone's social statusthroughout history, it should be
a whole season not only one.
I agree.
Yeah, that'd be a really longpodcast and with some people
that are more qualified than notAbsolutely, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 5 (14:21):
Yeah, All very fascinating and interesting
things to dive into.
I also just wanted to touchback on this idea that
tuberculosis became romanticizedin this way.
That it was interesting.
I found this journal articleabout it actually, which I was
like, yeah, someone's written ajournal, Like I'm glad that
someone has written, like ajournal of TB and beauty
standards.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
No, it's like a whole journal.
Speaker 5 (14:41):
It was called.
Even in Death she is Beautiful,confronting Tuberculosis in Art
, literature and Medicine.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
And I was like, oh OK .
Speaker 5 (14:50):
So I was reading this morning, and what they were
talking about is how upper classwomen who contracted the
disease were then, like, judgedaccording to their
attractiveness.
And it was like a wastingdisease, right, tuberculosis,
because it was a wasting diseasethey were like.
It enhances your, like female,beauty standards if you become
incredibly pale and waxy.
Who wants to be like waxy?
I feel like people activelyavoid that, but I guess that was
the thing in Victorian England.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
I literally could not think of anything worse to be
caring about while I am wastingaway from tuberculosis.
Speaker 5 (15:19):
Do I look waxy enough ?
Do I look waxy?
Am I waxy?
It gets better, it gets better.
You just wait.
Is it giving bed baths?
And so I think what'sinteresting is that in this
journal article they say thattowards the end of the 18th
century, tuberculosis wasidentified as a disease which
promoted beauty in women andconferred beauty upon its
(15:40):
sufferer, and so the waif-likeconsumptive was dramatically
pale, very thin, red cheeks,bright eyes of fever, and that
it became really fashionable tolook that way and that good
health was basically ordinary,like you were so earthly if you
were in good health, Whereas ifyou had tuberculosis you were
ethereal and you were artisticand there was something about it
(16:00):
and it was really wild.
And what's interesting is thatsomeone did a study of
tuberculosis by takingphotographic portraits of people
with TB and comparing them tolike people without TB.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Did they have those photos in the journal article
they?
Speaker 5 (16:15):
did Some of them.
They were composites, which itwas really wild, and of course
the ones that they were showingwere of women.
But it was interesting thatthere was one physician and then
one guy who was a sir.
I don't know if he's a sir,make you a lord.
I have no idea what this means.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
Back, in the day Knighted, knighted.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
Okay, I don't know.
So they had this photographicstudio at a hospital in London
and they took pictures of over400 people aged 15 to 40, and
442 portraits of TB patientswere obtained from three
hospitals.
And then they did another 200people that also didn't have the
disease and they werephotographed and the images were
grouped together and theybasically ended up, I think,
(16:50):
with saying this was notconclusive of anything, because
for a while I think the beliefthat was TB was hereditary,
which it can look that way,right, because, like, ok, if one
person dies all these otherpeople have taken care of them
right in their families, they'realso likely to come down with
it.
(17:12):
No-transcript a portrait ofpeople with this disease.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
Does it make them more beautiful?
Let's compare.
Speaker 5 (17:20):
It's wild, it's wild.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Yeah, this reminds me .
Just to infuse this with alittle bit of pop culture, I
have this movie on my Netflixlist that I need to watch, and
it's supposedly about a guy whogoes to Hungary or Romania or
something like that and takespictures of people that
contracted 1918 flu and weredying of 1918 flu oh interesting
(17:42):
, so I'll let you guys know howthe movie is.
Speaker 5 (17:44):
That sounds very interesting.
Is it based on a true story?
Speaker 3 (17:47):
I think it's a.
No, it's a horror movie.
Speaker 5 (17:50):
But hey, I like pathogen horror.
That'd be wild, though, likethe 1918 flu that was some rough
stuff, I wouldn't be takingphotos of the people.
I would be like this is not asuper safe environment for me to
be in.
Wow, absolutely, that's wild.
So I just I had to add this inTu.
I just I had to add this inTuberculosis was so romanticized
it became a pickup line.
It became a pickup line.
(18:12):
And I checked multiple sourcesfor this because I was like this
can't, this can't be real, noone can be this dramatic.
This man was this dramatic.
So if you're ready, romanticpoet Lord Byron wanted to die of
consumption and he has said tohave told a friend how pale I
look.
I should like, I think, to dieof consumption because then the
woman would all say see thatpoor Byron, how interesting he
(18:36):
looks in dying.
Wow, can you imagine.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
But why is that a pickup line, though?
Speaker 5 (18:42):
But that is a pickup line he wants women to be like.
How pale and ethereal andtuberculous he looks, while
dying.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
That's a pickup line, wouldn't you say?
Speaker 3 (18:51):
That is good.
Speaker 5 (18:51):
That's something, or at least a desire to like be,
like wow, I don't know, I justthink that's wild.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
Yeah, that is incredible.
Speaker 5 (18:59):
Anyways.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
And it also shows how superficial humankind has
always been.
I'm not going to.
Speaker 5 (19:05):
You know what I mean.
He would rather die coughing upblood, just so women would be
like how sickly he looks.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
Wow, so sickly, so handsome in his sickness.
Speaker 5 (19:14):
In death.
Speaker 4 (19:15):
Yes, yeah, anyways.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Romanticizing death.
Romanticizing death.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Isn't that an entire?
You could write a PhD off ofthat.
Yeah, that's still a, thing,right, yeah?
Speaker 5 (19:25):
Absolutely Anyways.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
Absolutely.
That's still a thing, right,yeah, absolutely, anyways.
So off of this conversation ofTB and beauty standards and how
beauty standards themselves haveevolved throughout time, I'm
going to take this in anotherdirection and talk about how the
lore of vampires has actuallyevolved over time, and this is
what Dennis was touching on atthe beginning.
My topic of the day is going tobe Porphyria and vampires.
(19:50):
So originally, vampires, fromwhat I could see in my research,
can be traced way, way back,and some of the original stories
that at least had to do with acharacter that resembled a
vampire, traced back to ancientGreece, with the Empusa, I
believe, is how you pronounce it, or even Strix, and that traces
all the way back to about 4500BC, as late as then.
(20:11):
That's incredibly early that weeven began having some lore
about some kind of vampirishfigure.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
So was it.
They didn't use the wordvampire, but was it a
description of a human in theneed for blood or the urge to
drink blood?
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Yeah, so the Strix character was apparently a bat
with a human head that wouldfeed off of the blood of humans,
essentially from what Iremember Now.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
I have a Halloween costume idea.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
Yeah, I was going to say that is a disturbing image.
I feel like, yeah, that makesme think of what we do in the
shadows oh my God, when they'relike trying to turn into a bat,
like Guillermo hasn't quitegotten it, and then he's just
like bat, but he's like halfhuman and half bat.
Okay, so good to know thatthey're actually drawing from
real lore for that, if youhaven't watched what we do in
the shadows.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Please watch it.
It's great.
Please watch it, one of myfavorite shows of all time.
Speaker 5 (21:05):
Great vampire comedy.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Okay, what's, what is it against?
Tell me what we do in theshadows.
Okay, there's a movie andthere's a TV series.
Speaker 5 (21:15):
We'll be putting this in the show notes with the
articles.
There's a movie.
That's how it came out.
It's originally based on amovie.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
Oh my goodness.
Okay, just know it definitelygot the sexual undertones in the
show.
Overtones for our listeners, sobe aware of that.
But it really is a very funnyTV show and movie.
I would assume I haven't seenthe movie though, but anyway.
Going back to vampire lore, sothe actual vampire as we know,
it didn't really become a thinguntil about the 18th century,
(21:40):
and that's when we started tohear about stories of this
figure with the sharp pointedteeth, with full head of hair,
pale and nosferatu, yes,nosferatu, and I actually have
some notes about sweet nosferatu.
Speaker 5 (21:56):
Okay, is nosferatu a german word it's a german movie,
that's for sure.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Yeah, but it's the latin name.
Speaker 5 (22:01):
Oh, it's a latin name there's a new nosferatu coming
out at the end of the year.
I heard of that it's supposedto be like horror.
I meant to watch the trailerlast night and I got too spooked
, so I stopped.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Who's in it?
Who's playing Nosferatu?
Speaker 5 (22:13):
I don't know, I didn't get that far.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Is it like?
I don't know?
Speaker 5 (22:16):
It was scary.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
So I thought it'd be good to just touch on exactly
what Porphyria is and then giveexamples of vampire descriptions
from literature and also fromcinema that kind of allow us to
compare the actual disease andthe disease presentation to this
vampire lore.
So porphyria is actually adisease that is due to a lack of
(22:42):
an enzyme in the synthesis ofporphyrin 9, which is the
protein that combines with ironto form heme.
And if you don't know what hemeis the oxygen carrying molecule
within a red blood cell.
It's really important part ofthe red blood cell, right?
And if you don't have porphyrinnine, you will be anemic.
(23:03):
And what happens when you'reanemic?
You tend to have what's calledpallor, right.
So you have a very distinctivepallor.
You're very white, You're verypale, you also don't feel good.
You also really don't feel good.
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
So basically to summarize that you would say you
just cannot make Mature redblood cells.
Red blood cells.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
Yeah, exactly, you can't make them.
Well, at least.
Speaker 5 (23:25):
It's interesting, though, it is a disease that's
compatible with life.
Like you can live with this.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
These red blood cells produce this immature porphyrin
and then they release it andthe porphyrin gathers in the
skin and what happens is whenyou come into contact with
sunlight, it causes theporphyrin yeah, it causes the
porphyrin to release freeradicals and that reacts in your
body to cause blistering, tocause pain, to cause scaling
(23:52):
skin.
It's really incredible.
So I wrote down some of thesymptoms and I'll list them off.
So burning pain when exposed tolight, sudden painful redness
and swelling blisters on theexposed skin and then also,
interestingly enough, excesshair growth in those commonly
affected areas.
So when you think about it, itmakes sense, right, because your
body's trying all it can tohide the skin from the sunlight.
(24:14):
So it makes sense that youwould grow a little bit more
hair, right In those areas.
That's why we have a lot ofhair on our heads, right,
because our heads are exposed tothe most sunlight.
That's cool.
I think that's what I've heard.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
I'm not sure that was like one of the evolutionary
what's what I think is kind ofweirdest, and then totally
sidetracking here.
That's weird.
I think we're the onlymammalian where we have
constantly growing hair.
Right, every other mammal has acertain length and it stops,
but like our hair, just keepsgrowing right, interesting, I
didn't think about that.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
That's interesting I always thought it was an
insulation thing.
If you're in the colds, thenyou're.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
You don't lose I think it is also an insulation
thing, but I think anotherAll-side purpose yes exactly
that's evolution for you, okay.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
So, christina, I just wanted to ask you a question.
So the substance porphyrin isthe name, right.
So that gets into the skin andstays in the skin.
Yeah, does it change the colorof the skin?
Speaker 4 (25:05):
Not necessarily no, but what it does and what it can
do, is actually deposit in theteeth, and so porphyrin in the
teeth will give the teeth thislike reddish color, okay, and
then it also, interestinglyenough, causes your teeth to
fluoresce under UV light.
Oh, wow, I didn't know that.
No-transcript when we read.
(25:25):
Let's move on to Bram Stoker'sDracula description.
Right, so this was written in1897.
And I'm just going to read alittle excerpt that I wrote down
.
So it says the mouth was ratherfixed and cruel looking, with
peculiarly sharp white teeth.
The rest of his ears were paleand the tops extremely pointed.
The general effect was one ofextraordinary pallor.
I had noticed the backs of hishands as they lay on his knees
(25:49):
in the firelight and they seemedrather white and fine.
So that's just a huge emphasison his pallor, right On the
paleness of his skin.
And actually it was not a thing, at least in Bram Stoker's
Dracula, that Dracula himselfwas affected by the light.
That did not become a hugething until Nosferatu came out,
(26:09):
and so Nosferatu is what startedthe idea that vampires would
essentially burn in the sun.
What Bram Stroker's Dracula didinstead was become a little bit
weaker, so he was basically aregular human in the sun, and
that's how he presented himselfduring the day, but at night he
gained this like superhumanstrength and became the vampire
Dracula.
Speaker 5 (26:29):
The original is really worth reading.
I really want to read it andit's not as dense as like some
books written during that timeperiod where they're like you're
looking at the English andyou're like, oh, this is like
Frankenstein's also worthreading, but it's like in older
English and it's very like it'sjust long exposition.
It's worth reading, but Draculais not like that.
It's really it's good.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
I very.
Speaker 5 (26:53):
For me it's worth reading but Dracula is not like
that.
It's really.
It's good.
I really want to read it.
After reading these excerpts, Ithought it was very easy, at
least for older books, to follow.
It won't read like horror toyou, though, because if you've
seen anything with horror now,it's not scary in any way, but
back in the day.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
Just a little bit of pop culture infusion here again.
Just my opinion.
Gary Oldman's performance in1992's Bram Stoker is the best.
Speaker 5 (27:10):
For me the best Dracula ever you don't think
it's Bela Lugosi.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
No, yeah, just it's my opinion.
Speaker 5 (27:16):
Okay, okay, I guess you can have that opinion, not
like an entire goth culture hasbeen made around Bela Lugosi's
dead.
It's okay, all right.
All right, moving on sopassionate, I see you
differently now.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
That's hilarious, but I guess, talking about the
blistering skin, going back toPorphyria and the connection to
vampires and Nosferatu the maincharacter, which I guess his
name was Orlok that movie wascreated in 1922.
Yeah, slyden movie right, yes,and the character Orlok in the
end ends up burning because hespends the entire evening,
(27:54):
essentially in the entire nightby the side of this beautiful
woman, instead of killing herand drinking her blood.
Speaker 5 (27:59):
Right Did she have TB ?
We'll never know.
We'll never know.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
Because it was silent and it was probably black and
white.
It was handsy.
Her reddish lips, yeah, wecouldn't say.
And so that was more of acommentary, apparently, on just
the evil that Orlok himselfdepicted being overcome by
innocence and morality.
That spun future lore,essentially, and crafted this
(28:30):
narrative of the vampire thenbeing, incredibly like, averted
to sunlight.
And so that's where we get ourmodern day vampire that can't go
out into the sun.
I don't know if it'stechnically our modern day
vampire anymore, because I thinkedward cullen is more the
modern day vampire now they're abetter modern day vampire.
Now they're a better modern dayvampire, but I would say the
classic vampire that we all know, that that really helped shape
(28:53):
that character and so we see alot of those striking
similarities between Porphyriaand the incredibly delicate
aversion to sun that thosepatients have with the depiction
of the classic vampire that weall know.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Yeah, very cool, very cool.
Yeah, when did the whole batsituation evolve?
Because there are bats thatdrink blood, but it's just a few
species, right?
Speaker 5 (29:18):
Yeah, I have always wondered about their microbiomes
.
What is their microbiome?
Like that they can break downblood.
Like the microbiome of a leechor a vampire bat?
Like that they can break downblood.
It must be, I feel like it mustbe so unique compared to
animals that are just eatinglike plants or like meat or
something.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Yeah, or it's ticks.
Speaker 5 (29:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
That's so interesting because our body, our bodies,
we eat food right and we breakfood down for its biomolecular
components that we need.
You know what I mean.
But bats and these animals thatjust drink the blood directly,
like they are getting thosenutrients.
They don't have to really likebreak down anything, they just
have to absorb.
When you think about it, that'sso interesting to me.
Or at least they break down alot less than what other animals
(30:00):
and mammals have to break down.
That's very interesting.
That's something to look into.
Good point, Camille.
I've always been curious.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Yeah.
There's not that many animalsthat that do that?
That's true, yeah, and if yousee, what I always thought was
really curious, the the batsthat drink blood where they they
have to land right and thenthey bite cows or something like
that and they lick it up yeah,and they lick it up and they're
put in a very vulnerable stateon the ground right.
they're obviously much better inin air or in an arboreal
(30:30):
setting, and so they putthemselves in this very
vulnerable situation to accessthe blood.
I thought it was always verycurious.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
So they don't actually suck the blood, they
just bite blood comes out andthey lick it up.
Speaker 5 (30:41):
Wow, I did not know that they're not like mosquitoes
or something.
Speaker 4 (30:45):
Interesting Huh.
You'll learn something newevery day.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they also
have something in their salivathat makes the bite less.
Like an anticoagulant, yeah,and numbs the bite side.
I think I could be wrong, Idon't know, I'm not sure.
Interesting, wow, so cool, it'svery cool.
So are we going to find all thearticles and all that stuff
that you guys referenced in theshow notes, or can you put them
in the show notes, sure?
Speaker 4 (31:10):
Mine's really just going to be Dracula, the book by
Bram Stoker, but I'll put alink there for sure.
Yeah, because it's worthreading.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
It really is.
What about you?
Is your source for the Greekstuff?
Speaker 4 (31:21):
I'll put some.
Yeah, I think one of them was aSmithsonian article, I believe,
so I will definitely link thatas well.
Speaker 5 (31:27):
Yeah, I have a couple of links to add, but there you
have it.
Speaker 4 (31:30):
Yeah, pop culture references too that have to do
with beauty standards, and then,or who's the best Dracula.
I love it, but I hope thateveryone enjoyed this kind of
section of the podcast that wedid on folklore and its
connection to science and theworld around us, because I
thought it was fascinating tolearn about these different
(31:50):
connections for sure.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Yeah, if you liked it , just let us know, drop us a
line or send us a message andlet us know if you want to hear
more about Dracula and beautystandards and TB.
And yeah, all right, thanks,guys.
Speaker 4 (32:05):
Thanks for listening.
Thanks for listening.
Let us know what you want tohear in the comments.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Thanks for listening.
Thanks for listening.
Let us know what you want tohear in the comments.
Thanks for listening to theInfectious Science podcast.
Be sure to hit subscribe andvisit infectiousscienceorg to
join the conversation, accessthe show notes and to sign up
for our newsletter and receiveour free materials.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
If you enjoyed this new episode of Infectious
Science, please leave us areview on Apple Podcasts and
Spotify, and go ahead and sharethis episode with some of your
friends.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Also, don't hesitate to ask questions and tell us
what topics you'd like us tocover for future episodes.
To get in touch, drop a line inthe comments section or send us
a message on social media.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
So we'll see you next time for a new episode, and in
the meantime, stay happy stayhealthy, stay interested.
Thank you.
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