Stigma Stigmata

[Cap'n Jack]

It strikes me often that we tend to look at the crimes of the Whitechapel Murderer from the lofty and splendid isolation of the age we now live in, rather than immersing ourselves fully into the murky waters of the Late Victorian Period, where, after all, the answer to these crimes most likely is buried, along with our knowledge of that peculiar and particular age.
We tend to gloss over, or even forget, the incredible social stigma that could be attached to personal events or circumstances in the LVP, which we now today accept as quite normal and beyond social reproach.
I have highlighted one of those social stigmas - giving birth to a child when unmarried - on another thread, but here I would like to discuss the social stigma of syphilis, and how society's attitude towards this disease in the LVP could have influenced and effected the behaviour of individuals within that society with the disease.
In this direct regard I was enormously pleased to find a paper by a Dr Gerard Tilles entitled 'Stigma of syphilis in 19th Century France' where he makes some very interesting statements and breaches what I think are very far reaching conclusions. For instance that in 1888 syphilis was still considered by many in the medical profession to be a 'heredity' disease, and that the only course left to society in the 1880's was to clear the prostitutes off the streets and imprison them. To this end, from 1871 to 1903, 725,000 prostitutes were arrested by the Paris police and imprisoned for being syphilitic.
He writes this concerning the influence of the 'Societe francaise de prophylaxie sanitaire et morale' in those years:

'In summary, the members of the SFPSM extended their influence beyond the individual life of men and women, and finally developed a message of collective fear:
fear of prostitutes, a marginal social category and in a general manner of the working classes considered as aggressors of the aristocratic society and bourgeoisie
fear of sexuality regarded as an element of degeneration followed by diseappearance of the race by reason of deleterious consequences of syphilis on birth rate,
and finally fear of the decay of the social order.'

[Robert]

Hi AP

There was at that time much interest in eugenics, not just because of the influence of Darwin, but also because of the much more pressing influence of Prussian guns. The ruling classes began to wonder how they were going to defeat the all-conquering Prussian army with malnourished, disease-ridden, syphilitic troops. They were so worried, they started shoving food at the labouring classes. The fear must have been even greater in France than it was in Britain.

Another stigma of the time was the dread poor people had that they wouldn't be able to pay for their own funeral.

Robert

[Cap'n Jack]

They certainly paid back those pesky Prussians in 1914 though, instead of throwing food at the working class, they threw the working class at the Prussians... that gave 'em something to chew on, and it got rid of syphilis.
The Colony is not to be trifled with, Robert, as you have noted as well.

[Celesta]

Cap'n Jack,

I'm glad you post these sorts of items. It bothers me that we often judge people from the past by our modern standards. A recent example would be the issue of the morals/ethics/behavior of the Victorian police versus the modern police. If we continue to do this, we will build a very inaccurate picture of the past. That's not a good tribute to our predecessors. I've gotten into small arguments with people because of this issue and don't seem to be able to get my point across. Of course, I'm a relative newcomer to this site.

My best to you,

Celesta

[Graham]

This is an interesting thread.

Lord Curzon once saw British troops bathing in a river during WW1, and he remarked to a friend that he was astonished to learn that the working-class were white all over their bodies. God, what did he expect to see? Scales?

My maternal grandfather (born about 1880) was illegitimate, and any questions concerning either of his parents were met with a stony silence. It was only just before she died in 2000 that my mother felt able to tell me the full story, so far as she knew it.

Graham

[Robert]

Hi folks

Another thing which seems odd today : the interest in religion. Families would "go without," pawning their Sunday clothes on Monday and then redeeming them in time to go to church the next Sunday.

[miss marple]

Hi All,
This is a very interesting thread, its always bothered me that some casebookers hav no sense of the culture or historical context of the period of which they discuss.I think this ignorance is responsible for the the belief in some of the most outlandish suspects and conspiracy theories.
The elephant in the room is always class, and many non British have no concept of the depth and difference of the class system and the disgust felt by the upper classes for the working class. Eastenders were the equivilent of Untouchables associated with crime dirt, disease and fleas.
Poverty was believed to be the fault of the poor.
There have been too many posts from people believing the upper classes were having a good old time popping down the east end for a bit of a jolly. Thinking with 21st century minds.
The class system is ingrained in England and anyone from a working class background knows the score. Miss Marple

[Robert]

The rich used to talk about their servants exactly the way slave-owners spoke of their slaves - as if they were animals or children.

There would have been a great deal of resentment travelling the other way, of course, but also a rather surprising amount of deference.

[Cap'n Jack]

Thanks folks, it is an interesting subject, so I'll sally forth.
The good doctor had the following to say about his studies of syphilis in the 19th Century (one must remember that English is not his first language):

'As a general rule, the syphilis contagion was considered as being transported into the families from the prostitutes or women of the working classes. By inciting the husband to commit adultery, they attacked the integrity of the social order and by transmitting syphilis, considered as hereditary, to honest families, prostitutes were regarded as playing an essential role in the degeneration of the race. So, the biologic discourse of the contamination was superceded by that of a conflict of classes, prostitutes symbolizing more the de-moralisation of the society by sex than only the transmission of a contagious disease.'

This sort of opens out the discussion in an even more interesting direction, in that a young man from the LVP, believing firmly that syphilis was heredity, and having perhaps taken the disease from a prostitute in a casual sexual encounter, just might come to believe that prostitutes had blighted his potential heirs forever with the transmission of the disease, firstly to him, and then in later life to his children.
This would lead him to the justification of revenge.
And provide a perfectly valid motive for the Whitechapel Murders.
Not because he had the dreaded pox, for we must understand that just about anyone who had truck with a prostitute would surely get this itch and scratch, but that he had the reading and intelligence to support the notion that syphilis was heredity and that he had just condemned his heirs into oblivion... therefore he would have to be an educated middle class young man; for as one would expect and imagine the lower class males of the LVP would not have likely possessed the false knowledge that syphilis was heredity. Simply because they didn't read the 'Lancet'.
I find the good doctor's views that prostitutes represented a very real threat to society in general in the LVP - because of the imagined situation that syphilis was a heredity disease - to correspond rather neatly with my own views that a young man from that period who imagined he had syphilis would be far more dangerous to society than a young man who actually did.
That's the pesky Colony model again!

[Robert]

Not just the marriage hearse blighted with plagues, AP.

I can imagine him buying the Lancet and thinking, "Must find out what I did to Annie."

[Cap'n Jack]

Yes, Robert, that is the ticket.
One point that I found in the good doctor's paper of abiding interest was where he mentioned that taking mercury preparations to cure syphilis carried exactly the same stigma as having syphilis, and that the disease was often called the 'mercury' because of the supposed cure, which it wasn't.
For this reason the doctors of the LVP often disguised mercury as something else.
But then again I suppose an imagined disease doth require an imagined cure.
Personally I would write to my doctor about this.

[Robert]

Interesting that he would actually post the letter, AP - if indeed he did post it - for he only had to walk virtually round the corner and slip it in the doc's letterbox. For one who went rambling all night, that shouldn't have been a problem.

[Celesta]

Hi All,
This is a very interesting thread, its always bothered me that some casebookers hav no sense of the culture or historical context of the period of which they discuss.I think this ignorance is responsible for the the belief in some of the most outlandish suspects and conspiracy theories.
The elephant in the room is always class, and many non British have no concept of the depth and difference of the class system and the disgust felt by the upper classes for the working class. Eastenders were the equivilent of Untouchables associated with crime dirt, disease and fleas.
Poverty was believed to be the fault of the poor.
There have been too many posts from people believing the upper classes were having a good old time popping down the east end for a bit of a jolly. Thinking with 21st century minds.
The class system is ingrained in England and anyone from a working class background knows the score. Miss Marple

Hi Miss M,

I had gotten the impression that the upper strata did pop down to the East End as you say, but I read a few books by an author, with well researched books, sets her books in the Late Vict. Period, and she quickly convinced me that that didn't happen. Just as you point out.

It's hard not to make the mistake of judging other times with our own sensibilities.

[caz]

Hi AP,

Coming to this thread a little late, which isn't very clever of me I know.

But at least that's how Jack liked his women - better late than clever.

It was actually said that the reason [filthy word alert] the M******ks ceased marital relations after their second child was born was not only the wife's discovery that her hubby had been 'carrying on' the whole time, but also her hubby's fear of 'injuring' any further children they might have together - 'injuring' thought to be a euphemism for passing on a sexually transmitted disease. He had been risking passing one on to his wife from day one, of course, but that apparently had never bothered him.

Just thought you'd like to know that someone may have been keeping up to date with their reading matter - in this case the latest medical theories of the day.

Love,

Caz
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