Vitriol Sensation

I was reading The Fasting Girl by Michelle Stacey last night. In the midst of reading, the book quickly mentioned vitriol-throwing.. which was a brief criminal sensation during the late Victorian years.

The book states:

"Innocent citizens were burned by vitriol thrown on them by persons unknown to them-a puzzling, random crime that enjoyed a brief popularity."

I thought this was interesting because I've never heard of vitriol.. and i like poisons. Vitriol is another name for Sulfuric acid. Apparently, criminals would take a bucket, or a jar, of vitriol and throw it at victims thereby burning off their face and other body parts. Arthur Conan Doyle mentions this type of attack in one of his books. there are different types of vitriol. The color of the end product corresponds with the named color.

blue vitriol: copper sulfate
green vitriol: iron sulfate
white vitriol: zinc sulfate
(shown is blue vitriol)

I tried to find some info about crimes about vitriol in my other books. Haven't found anything yet. If you would like to read part of this book, please go

HERE

The book mainly tells the story about a girl who unexplainably survives on hardly any food excepts a bit of milk and fruit. Then later in life, doesn't eat any food for the 12 ending years of her life.

Old Cures for Diarrhea

Recently, I've purchases a book called Country Fold Medicine which is a collection of old remedies people used to do for various illnesses. The information was gathered by Elisabeth Janos and comes from elderly senior's stories of the good 'ol days. It is truly questionable if these treatments work or whether they are just placebo effect. Some treatments do have some scientific proof behind them and/or have been used for centuries dating even back to the Egyptians.

Cures for Diarrhea or more discreetly, "summer complaint":
Blackberries in general:
Blackberry root simmered in water to make tea.
Blackberry brandy
Blackberry syrup

Scalded Milk:
A cup of scalded milk + spices of your choosing (cinnamon, pepper, flour)
Scalded Milk poured over burnt toast. yum yum.

Pepper:
spoonful of pepper or diluted in water or flour.

photo credit: timniblett

So I think ideally, if you wanted to cure your summer complaint: a cup of scaled milk, burnt toast with blackberry jam sprinkled heavily with pepper.

Updating Zines - buy one!

With the purchase of my long arm stapler, I was able to update my Etsy with three older issues of Old Crap. Originally, once my zines were gone, they were gone forever. But, I'm pretty slow at making them because I research them so heavily now. And the subjects of each issue are unique. Contact me if you would like one. They are $3 each or you can vist my etsy site HERE.

Mr. B The Gentleman Rhymer

Because I can't get enough banjo music, I'm sharing a musician I have recently discovered: Mr. B the Gentleman Rhymer. A UK historic hip-hopper. He's like and old fashion british Paul Barman. It's catchy and the crossing of old and new hip-hop (so named chap-hop) is really well done. LUVE IT!

if you would like to hear more from him, please click HERE.
ATM, I'm trying to locate a site to buy the CD, Flattery Not Included, as he's from the UK.

New Books!

Today I took a trip to Half -Price Books and came back with a book which I think will make for some fun reading:

I bought Madams mainly for the current zine I'm working on.. plus I find the subject really interesting. The book seems easily readable and the years it mainly covers is pre-1900. But the topics to range from the 1740's to 1960's.

I'll talk more later about it once I start reading.