The Zone: The Underbelly of Paris

.

Map of Paris in 1889. In the early 20th century, as the city underwent rapid expansion, the decision was made to demolish the outdated fortifications that encircled the city.

/

Paris, with its grand boulevards, iconic landmarks, and rich cultural heritage, captures visitors and residents alike. Yet, beneath its glamorous façade lies a lesser-known aspect of its history—the Zone. The wide boulevards that run in circles were once moats and defensive ditches surrounding the walls. Names such as Porte de Clichy or Porte Saint-Denis, now mere metro stations, recall the former gates to the French capital.

Permanent construction was prohibited within 250 metres (55 yards) of the fortifications. Outside the protective walls, a no-man’s-land emerged, inhabited by those on the fringes of society. Over time, this area became known as the Zone. This was a place where the destitute and outcasts found shelter amidst poverty and squalor. Rag pickers, beggars, and other marginalized groups eked out a living in makeshift dwellings constructed from scavenged materials. These offered little protection from the elements. Urban amenities such as street lighting or running water were missing.

ies such as street lighting or running water were missing

.

The Zone was a fertile ground for crime and violence, as gangs and thugs roamed the streets with impunity. It was a lawless wasteland, with little hope for a brighter future. The city’s efforts to maintain order and protect its citizens were constantly challenged by the criminal activities originating from the Zone, making it a significant concern for the overall well-being of Paris. The Zone housed the cheapest eating places, the roughest bars, and was the working domain of prostitution dregs. (See the post The Fortification Whore below.)

.

A rag picker

.

Crime was not the only danger emerging from the Zone. The activity of rag pickers worried the authorities as they carried and spread various diseases. Rag pickers relied on scavenging for their livelihood, combing through the streets, alleys, and garbage dumps of Paris. They searched for discarded items that could be salvaged, repaired, or sold. They collected everything from rags and bones to metal scraps and discarded furniture, transforming what others saw as waste into commodities. Long hours spent scavenging through garbage heaps, exposure to unsanitary conditions, and the constant threat of illness were part and parcel of their existence. The child mortality rate in these parts was four times that of the healthier parts of the city.

.

Sorting the scavenged material

.

The Commission for Unsanitary Housing of the Department of the Seine produced a report for 1851 that uses the terms of a report from 1832. The situation does not seem to have changed in twenty years:

Most are busy sorting, during the day, the product of their nocturnal rounds, squatting around this dirty loot. They pile up in every corner, and even under their bunks, bones, old linens soiled with mire, whose fetid miasmas spread in the middle of these hideous garrets, where often a space of less than two square meters serves as shelter to a whole family.

Rag pickers had to be adept at finding solutions to challenges, whether it was repairing broken items, repurposing materials, or devising innovative ways to make ends meet. For instance, they kept records of weddings and other celebrations. After such gatherings, the ground was a source of cigarette butts and cigar stumps. The remaining tobacco was meticulously extracted and recycled. Discarded food, too, could be a source of income. The post Poor and Hungry in Paris: Gambling Eateries and Harlequin Luxury Food describes this industry.

Despite their vital role in recycling and waste management, rag pickers were viewed as social outcasts, relegated to the fringes of society. Their bags could contain stolen items, and they sometimes did. This social stigma only served to further isolate and marginalize them, making it even more challenging to escape the cycle of poverty and deprivation.

.

The recycled goods on sale

.

The history of the Zone offers a sobering glimpse into the darker corners of Parisian society, where poverty and exclusion were stark realities for many.

–

Related posts:

Poor and Hungry in Paris: Gambling Eateries and Harlequin Luxury Food

Parisian Prostitutes (1): The Fortifications Whore

,

READ MORE BY THIS AUTHOR

Read Full Post »

The Arsenic Century: When Your Walls Could Kill You

.

.

In the 19th century, a substance known as arsenic earned a macabre reputation. Often referred to as “the inheritance powder” or “the poison of choice,” arsenic became synonymous with danger, deceit, and death. This toxic element had a profound impact on society during the Victorian era, leaving a trail of suffering and intrigue.

Arsenic was used as an industrial chemical, with many applications in manufacturing, agriculture, and medicine. It served both as a rat-killer and a medicinal powder. Its ubiquity led to widespread contamination, with many people unknowingly exposed to its dangers.

,

Arsenic-based face powders and lotions were used to achieve a pale, porcelain-like complexion, which was a beauty ideal during that era.

.

The minimal regulations governing the use of chemicals gave manufacturers the freedom to experiment with various substances, including toxic ones. In addition to cosmetics, arsenic threatened the health of entire families because it was used as a fixative for bright colors in fabrics, upholstery, and wallpapers. Never-fading, highly saturated colors were a novelty in the early Victorian era.

.

The most-sought after was the Paris Green, a chemical compound of copper and arsenic. The combination produced a bright green color that became very trendy in home décor and fashion.

.

It is estimated that a Victorian living room decorated with brightly-colored wallpapers could contain as much as four pounds of arsenic. The consequences of exposure to arsenic varied in severity. Breathing in airborne particles of arsenic could irritate the respiratory system and lead to coughing and difficulty breathing. Extended exposure to arsenic, whether through skin absorption or accidental ingestion, could result in more serious health problems. These included chronic skin conditions, gastrointestinal disorders, and, in severe cases, arsenic poisoning that produced severe nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhea, hair loss, skin discoloration, and, in the worst cases, an extremely painful death.

,

Direct exposure to arsenic affected workers in wallpaper factories and anybody closely involved with chemically dyed fabrics. They developed ugly skin lesions.

.

Gradually, the public began to recognize the hazards associated with the industrial utilization of arsenic.

.

As the 19th century progressed, efforts were made to replace arsenic-containing compounds with safer alternatives and to legislate its use. This included the development of less toxic pigments and the use of other chemicals for pest control.

.

However, the criminal use of arsenic as the “inheritance powder” continued unabated. Odorless, tasteless, and easily available in pharmacies, the substance was an ideal silent killer that remained largely undetected because the symptoms of arsenic poisoning were similar to cholera.

.

Related post:

Health: Why You Wouldn’t Want to Live in 19th Century

.

If you like these posts, support the author by buying her books:

Read Full Post »

Health: Why You Wouldn’t Want to Live in 19th Century

.

Health care counts as one of the main reasons why you would not want to live in the 19th century. It is easy to be seduced by paintings and movies. From our point of view of ragged jeans, tattoos, and messy hair, the elegance of tall hats, snow-white shirts, and gloves for the gentlemen, or the lace, silk, and sculpted hairdos for the ladies, paint a picture of the lost perfect word. Ah, if only…

Wake up to the reality of our ancestors’ lives. The snow-white shirts and the lace got rapidly dirty in the polluted air. Heating was provided by wood and coal, both producing ashes. In addition to sooth covering every urban surface, the streets reeked of urine and other byproducts of horse transport. Read  Life in the Age of Decay. (All links below)

The beautiful, elaborate gowns were unwashable because they were composites of too many materials, each needing special care. They were maintained by brushing and spot-cleaning; they never saw water. As for the poor, who formed the vast majority of the population, their water came in buckets, often from a faraway source, and had to be heated. Keeping clean was both time-consuming and expensive. In short, if the streets reeked, horses were only one part of the problem.

Food could kill you. No refrigeration meant that animal products spoiled rapidly. Little or no food control made eating  hazardous to your health. Adulteration with unhealthy substances was not uncommon. The post Extreme Food Recycling depicts the brutal situation. (Warning: do not read it before, during, or immediately after a meal.)

This lack of hygiene had consequences. Illness and premature death were ever present, with the average life-span only a half of what it is today. If you were unlucky enough to fall ill, you would stay in bed and send for a doctor. He would, in all probability, bleed you and prescribe some drops or powders to take in your drink. The rest was up to you.

.

Medical knowledge was still rudimentary. Easily treatable diseases like the goiter disfigured people. This woman is not scared, and her contemporaries would know that, as they were used to the sight. Bulging eyes and swollen throat were the result of a malfunctioning thyroid gland.

.

Hospitals were for the utterly destitute and no one in their right mind would go near one. Except perhaps for an urgent amputation, which in many cases resulted in death by sepsis, or a heart failure because of the searing pain for which there was no relief. Instead of washing their hands and wearing protective clothing, surgeons operated in their street clothes and an apron coated with dried blood. They washed their hands after the surgery.

.

Amputation of a shoulder joint

.

The plodding history of French hospitals/hospices under the Ancient Regime (pre-1789) was interrupted by the radical hand of the Revolution.  In the Year II (1794), these institutions were nationalized. Only four years later, the revolutionaries realized they were unable to cope with the overwhelming task of poverty, and they dropped hospitals into the care of the municipalities who housed them. There they remained. Two centuries later, the mayor is still the chairman of the hospital’s board of directors.

Of the Ancient Regime hospitals in Paris, the largest was La Salpêtrière. It was an infamous women’s asylum, which was operated more like a prison, housing prostitutes, the mentally ill, and the disabled. It had a terrible reputation. During the Revolution, in 1792, the hospital was stormed with the intention of releasing the detained women. However, the situation got out of hand. Instead, the mob dragged out thirty-five of the women and murdered them. In the next century, the female inmates were exploited in the study of hysteria. (Professor Charcot and the Amplification of Hysteria and The Ball of the Folles.)

.

The La Salpêtrière Massacre  

.

Around the mid-century, things began to change with the invention of anesthesia. It was now possible to cut patients open and repair them from the inside. Thanks to scientists Semmelweiss, Lister, and Pasteur, the knowledge of harmful bacteria resulted in improved cleanliness. Now it made more sense, even for the moneyed, to seek help at the hospital. And you needed money when you had the bad luck to be admitted into a secular establishment.

In the hospitals run by the religious authorities, and staffed by dedicated nuns, the patients were more or less equal. Not so in the secular hospitals, where those who could pay received all the attention while those who had no money got next to none. It took many years and many changes before patient care reached anything close to today’s standards.

.

The visiting hour at a 19th century hospital ward

.

In his book, The Modern Parisienne, Octave Uzanne looked at women earning their living in relatively new professions. His portrayal of nurses is damning. The book was published in 1912 and it is only reasonable to think that the bad manners and lack of professionalism were even worse in the preceding fifty years.

The lay staff of the hospitals includes the ward maids, the

probationers, and the superintendents. The ward maids do

all the hard work. They sweep, make the beds (as badly as

possible), distribute and change the plates at meal-times,

cut up the bread, and live in a perpetual state of hostility to

the probationers, with whom they desire to be on an

equality. From this feeling arise continual quarrels and

complaints, in which the patients are often compelled to

take part, to their great disadvantage.

.

The ward maids are strong girls from the country, stupid,

coarse and rough, inconceivably awkward, if by an evil

chance they are called upon to give any help to a patient.

Their aim is to get through their work as quickly as possible,

to meet and gossip in their refectory. They are inveterate

beggars, and are always on the look-out to wring a few sous

from the patients. Everything must be paid for — a commis-

sion, a letter to the post; they smuggle in tobacco

and alcohol — in spite of a rule which absolutely forbids

gratuities. They are utterly indifferent to the patients, as

are nine out of ten of all the lay hospital assistants.

One of our friends knew an unfortunate man with a wound

in the leg, unable to go to the lavatory, and who for three

days asked in vain for a basin of water — he had no money.

The ward maids are boarded and lodged at the hospital.

They earn twenty to twenty-five francs per month, and

they have a free day once a fortnight.

.

The probationers (boursières) are young girls of from

twenty to twenty-five. Very often they are pretty. They

have influence, and are recommended to their posts. They

receive some rudimentary training in dispensing, obstetrics,

and medicine, also in dressing and bandaging. In theory,

they are on the same footing as the ward maids, but not in

practice. As the superintendents are recruited from their

ranks they receive superior consideration. Their duties are

to give out the medicine, &c., at fixed hours, to renew

dressings, to apportion to the patients their proper food,

and to watch the serious cases at night. They are required

to make the rounds frequently, to watch the dying, lay out

the dead, open and shut the windows at fixed hours, and

see that everything is clean. They fulfil these duties with

great indifference. If they dislike a patient they manage

to forget the hour for his medicine, and it is a lucky

chance if they do not make mistakes and poison some poor

creature committed to their care.

.

These statements are not exaggerated, and may be proved

any day in every hospital in Paris. The probationers spend

most of their time laughing and flirting with the house-

surgeons, dressers, or visitors. In this they are particularly

successful. They do not behave much better during the

doctor’s visits and as they pay little or no attention to his

orders, it is not surprising if they make blunders. They

take their meals outside, except when they are on duty,

which is twenty-four hours in three days, and sleep at home

except when on night duty. They are dressed like the ward

maids and superintendents, in a black dress, white apron

with bib, white sleeves, and a white cap with white bow.

The head-superintendents have a black bow on the cap.

Their name of boursières comes from the remuneration,

called a bourse, given by the Municipal Council, of 125

francs per month. They have a free day once a week.

When they are on night duty, they take part in convivial

parties given by the house-surgeons, and have a gay and

merry time. In a certain hospital which we will not name,

where a poet friend was a patient, the house-surgeons and

boursières on Shrove Tuesday romped in fancy dress through

the wards where men were dying — a most edifying spectacle.

.

The superintendent is an old probationer nominated

after several competitive examinations. She has the direction

of a ward and entire command of all the male and female

staff attached to it, under the control of the house-surgeon.

Her duties are not heavy, consisting only in the distribution

of wine and the dressing of some cases where the relatives

have paid her specially. She is, as a rule, a sharp, scolding,

authoritative person. She has no love for the boursières

and annoys them as much as possible. She worries

the ward maids without any mercy. She has a small room

to herself at the entrance of the ward, where she keeps her

notes and where she retires to gossip with the superinten-

dents of the other wards. She, like all the others, has no

real compassion in her. She does what is strictly necessary

— nothing more; she has no love for her patients. Her

profession is, for her, both dull and disagreeable — and she

takes all the hours of liberty she can get. She is often

married and receives a salary of about 1200 to 1600 francs

a year. Like the probationers, she leaves the task of

laying-out the dead to the ward maids.

.

We are not exaggerating the state of things, and moreover it is quite

comprehensible — these women have their interests outside

the hospital, their family, their friends. They go out often,

they draw a salary necessary to them for their living. It is

therefore a logical conclusion that they are not specially

enthusiastic about a very depressing profession, which

demands constant devotion of the most exalted kind.

Related posts:

Life in the Age of Decay

Extreme Food Recycling

Professor Charcot and the Amplification of Hysteria

The Madwomen’s Ball: A Flattering Invitation.

 

.

If you like these posts, support the author by buying her books (available in print and in Kindle)

.

.

Read Full Post »

The Deadly Pandemic of 1890: Take it with a Song

.

Between May 1889 and June 1890, a pandemic of influenza swept over the world. Known as the Asian Flu, or Russian Flu, it was one of the deadliest in history, killing about one million out of the world’s population of circa 1.5 billion. The disease was first reported in the Central Asian city of Bukhara in May 1889, to reach the American continent in December of the same year. Never before had a virus spread so quickly and on such a large scale. With the rapid growth of railway transport and an improvement in sea travel, humanity was no longer entirely safe from a pandemic, no matter the distance.

Distribution of help to the influenza victims

.

How did people cope then? The treatment was chaotic. Some used small doses of strychnine, others believed in large quantities of rum or whisky. Linseed, salt and warm water, glycerin or quinine were also used, none of which would be very helpful. Little was known of viral contagion, as even some doctors still believed in the miasma theory according to which disease was spread by bad air, the night air being the worst.

When even prayers did not bring results, there was always the song. Long, mournful ballads helped our ancestors to deal with their loss. The lyrics sold by street singers conserved the memory of important, often tragic events

.

Related post:

The Dead of Paris

.

If you like these posts, support the author by buying her books:

Read Full Post »

The Madwomen’s Ball: A Flattering Invitation

Every year, the Parisian elite received an invitation to the Madwomen’s Ball at the Salpêtrière Hospital

Last year’s February post Mi-Carême: An Explosion of Joy in the Midst of Gloom described the joyous feasts of Mid-Lent during the month of February. Let’s recall that the Mi-Carême celebrations cut in half the forty days of strict and tedious Lent rules of penance, fasting, and prayers. This brief rest from enforced virtue was filled with public and private costume parties. Feverish preparations for the events helped to fill time with pleasant activity in the first part of Lent, while happy memories did the same service during the second half.

If you received an invitation to the Madwomen’s Ball at the La Salpêtrière Hospital, you would feel flattered. Indeed, only the crème de la crème were thus honored. The celebrated Doctor Charcot, the head of the Neurological Clinic, would not allow mere rabble to spoil the event. After all, meeting the female patients—there were no men hospitalized in this institution—demanded a certain seriousness and responsible behavior. With mentally unstable patients, unpredictable accidents could happen. This or that inmate could behave oddly or succumb to a spectacular crisis of hysteria. Invitations were rarely refused for that very reason.

.

Nurses stand at the ready among the costumed patients as they mingle with the visitors

The hospital provided a funding of 500 francs for costumes, and the patients got themselves busy with sewing and fitting weeks before the event. On the night in question, the Ball des Folles began at 8:00 PM to be closed at midnight. Finger food was served, and a strictly no alcohol rule was enforced. The Tout Paris, as the Parisian elite was known, came to see the patients dance and make merry under the vigilance of the nurses. This curious event was repeated year after year until the early 20^th century.

.

Some of Dr. Charcot’s star performers

.

Jane Avril, charcoal sketch by Picasso

Since Dr. Charcot’s lectures were opened to public every Wednesday, some of his patients enjoyed a celebrity status for their demonstrations of madness. The women usually came from dire poverty or harsh abuse, and many were grateful for the safe home they found at the hospital. One of the former inmates, Jane Avril, recalls in her memoir that her stay at La Salpêtrière was a complete bliss compared to her life at home. Jane became a celebrated dancer. You can read her story in another post here.

Related post:

Professor Charcot and the Amplification of Hysteria

.

If you like these posts, support the author by buying her books at Amazon:

.

Read Full Post »

Professor Charcot and the Amplification of Hysteria

André Brouillet – A Clinical Lesson at the Salpêtrière ( 1887)

Professor Charcot in his French Academy uniform

.

Hysteria, although no longer a recognized disease, is still a word that refuses to die. We use it whenever someone’s behavior exceeds the norm. In the 19th century, hysteria was often paired with an exceptional scientist. His name was Jean-Martin Charcot. Charcot was born in 1825 and began his medical carrier at La Salpêtrière hospital in Paris, studying pathological anatomy. He was utterly fascinated by the many strange and seemingly incurable neurological afflictions he encountered there. At the time, the asylum/hospital of La Salpêtrière was a prison-like institution housing all the female detritus of Paris: all the social outcasts that could cause contamination, either physical or moral. Beggars, prostitutes, and the insane were picked off the street and brought to the asylum by cartloads. Up to ten thousand inmates, caregivers, and guardians populated this city within a city.

.

La Salpêtrière

To Charcot, the outcasts represented a treasury of unsolved medical mysteries. He plunged into this unknown territory with the same zeal seen in globe-trotting explorers. In1862, he founded a neurological clinic—the very first of its kind worldwide—where he reigned for the next 31 years. During that time, Charcot made important discoveries and advances in his field of expertise, and his vast merits should not be overshadowed by his exploitation of hysteria.

.

Hysteria

Hysteria was one of the oldest and the most mysterious nervous pathologies. The name came from the Ancient Greek word for uterus (hystera). By far, most patients diagnosed with this condition were women. The Ancient believed that the strange behavior of the afflicted was caused by the uterus wandering inside the woman’s body and causing all sorts of problems, such as violent attacks and infirmities without apparent physical cause.

.
Before Charcot stepped onto the world stage as the King of Hysteria, this illness was considered to be madness and the place for the mad was the asylum for the insane. Charcot saw the problem in a different light. He diagnosed hysteria as a neurological pathology which could be observed in both sexes. In his opinion, the basis for hysteria was some trauma faced by the patient which left a lesion on the nervous system. He noticed that hysterical attacks would happen several days after a traumatic incident. Further observations lead him to believe that attacks of hysteria occurred in a self-induced hypnotic state, and he decided that the patients should be treated under hypnosis.

.
It worked to a certain degree. Under hypnosis, Charcot brought on the hysterical attack, making it visible and treatable. What’s more, he was able to reproduce it on demand in front of an audience of students. Up to this point, hypnosis had been associated with occultism and frowned upon by science. Charcot made it into a scientific and empirical method to study hysteria.

.

Hypnosis consists of three stages: lethargy, catalepsy, and somnambulism. To reach the first stage, the patient has to be induced to the hypnotic state. Charcot had several tricks up his sleeve, from the usual swinging pocket watch, to a blinding light, or the loud vibrations of a giant tuning fork. For more resistant patients, he applied metals, magnets, or static electricity.

.

Inducing hypnosis with light

.

Induction by sound (left) State of lethargy (right)

.

If the induction is successful, lethargy sets in. In this state, the patient collapses and has to be supported by assistants to prevent a fall. Lethargy is characterized by complete relaxation, inattention, and amnesia. Charcot would use this stage to test the muscle contractions. Most hysterical attacks were accompanied by strong contractions he would call neuromuscular hyperexcitability. While the patient was unconscious and totally relaxed, Charcot could ascertain whether the case was a legitimate neurological disease or not.

Catalepsy

The next stage is named catalepsy. During this stage the patient is under the hypnotist’s control, obeying his commands, and can communicate to a degree. Free of conscious thought, the person cannot dissimulate and answers with all sincerity. Her limbs can be manipulated by the hypnotist’s commands and the patient is able to stiffen and remain in uncomfortable positions without a sign of fatigue. Many hysterics claimed numbness in certain parts of the body. In their conscious state, they could be poked with sharp objects without feeling pain. Under hypnosis, the numbness was gone and Charcot could demonstrate that there was no physical damage to the body.
.

The third stage, somnambulism, opened more communication between patient and doctor. Charcot believed that it represented the self-induced state of hysteria during which the attacks occurred. The patient was more conscious at this point and able to accept healing suggestions.
.

All this turned Charcot’s lectures into exciting stage productions with light and sound effects, with half-clad women fainting or screaming, thrashing about or slavishly obeying orders, and stiffening in unnatural positions in front of a fascinated masculine audience. As Charcot’s fame grew in medical circles, his neurological clinic saw students from far abroad. By that time he had his stars: Blanche, Louise, Augustine, and others/ They were young, pretty, and skillfully playing the part.

.

Charcot and his patient: The show could not go on

Toward the end of his life, Charcot admitted that hypnosis was not really used to treat the symptoms of hysteria. He could alleviate them, but in most cases it was only temporary relief. He used hypnosis to exhibit hysterical symptoms: it was a teaching tool, not a cure. After Charcot’s death, in 1893, hypnosis would continue, but in different forms. It was abandoned as a medical procedure, mainly because very few people had the ability to induce hypnosis the way Charcot could. Sigmund Freud, Charcot’s pupil, and great admirer failed at the task and developed psychoanalysis instead. Hypnosis returned to the occult and stage entertainment.

.
Modern medicine buried hysteria in the 1980s when it was eradicated from the official medical diagnoses list. It’s been replaced by the vague label of dissociative disorders.

.

Next: The Madwomen’s Ball at La Salpêtrière. (When the Parisian high-society went to the madhouse for entertainment.)

.

Related posts:

Murder Most Horrible: The Bloody Trunk Case (Hypnosis and crime)

Louise and Jeanne: The Two Antipodes of Moulin Rouge (Child abuse and mental illness)

Poor and Helpless in 19th Century Paris

.

If you like these posts, support the author by purchasing her books:

Read Full Post »

All About Corsets

Fashionable Victorian women, whether living in Paris, London, New York or Saint-Petersburg, had one thing in common: they took in shallow breaths.  Eating like a sparrow and fainting frequently was the price they paid for an 18-inch waist and exaggerated feminine curves. As the century neared its end, the lacing of corsets became more and more vicious:

It is only two months ago that my employer insisted upon my reducing my waist from 16in to 14in, on the ground that she must have a model to show the newest fashions on. How could I refuse? I know many girls who would lace their waist till they fainted to get a good situation. And so to please these ladies, I am locked day and night into a vice which hardly allows me to breathe.

Ouch!!!

All about corsets in Wikipedia.

Related post:

The Victorian Gentleman Undressed

.

Read Full Post »