Medical Department #31 - A Dangerous Toy for Christmas (in 1865!)

The newest installment of my "Medical Department" column in The Civil War News has a definite holiday twist! It's about a toy that was very popular in 1865 and - as -it turns out - also very dangerous! Enjoy!

WHAT’S UNDER THE TREE IN 1865? (HINT: IT’S DANGEROUS!)
By James M. Schmidt
The Civil War News – “Medical Department” – December 2009

“The chemical toy which is now sold largely in many shops in this city, at prices ranging from threepence to one shilling each, is composed of a highly dangerous and poisonous substance… The material is a doubleheaded poisoned arrow, for it contains two poisonous ingredients…either of which will kill.” – Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, 1865

With the holiday season just around the corner, I recently pulled a favorite old book off the shelf: Philip Van Doren Stern’s The Civil War Christmas Album (New York: Hawthorn, 1961). Among the illustrations are two pages of period ads for holiday gifts; some are for soldiers, including an “army watch,” “Union playing cards,” and personalized badges. There are also advertisements for children, including musical boxes and one that really caught my eye: “Pharaoh’s Serpents.”

The ad intrigued me in no small part because I’m a chemist by day, and I wondered if they might be an ancestor, so to speak, of the “black snake” fireworks (that anyone can buy today) which – upon lighting – expel a snake-like ash. They are, indeed; but they are a very dangerous ancestor! The “Pharaoh’s Serpents” were very popular during the 1865 Christmas season in America, having appeared in Paris earlier that year. Unfortunately, the 1860’s version of “black snakes” was composed of a very dangerous substance – mercuric thiocyanate – and by January 1866, newspapers carried reports of poisonings and even deaths!

That mercuric thiocyanate produced the fascinating expanding effect had been known for decades. In 1821, as a young medical student, the famous chemist Friedrich Wohler wrote that upon heating, the chemical could be seen “winding out from itself…worm-like…to many times its former bulk.” It became a staple of laboratory demonstrations, and in mid-1865, Scientific American magazine reported that “a very ingenious Frenchman has adopted the plan of putting little cones of the substance into boxes, and selling them for a franc apiece.” They soon became popular throughout Europe and – not surprisingly - appeared in America in time for the Christmas season in 1865.

As early as November 1865, however, scientists were warning the public of the possible dangers of the popular toy. The Lancet - the leading medical journal in Great Britain – described the chemical components of the toy, and declared:

“It is very necessary that persons with delicate lungs, or suffering from any disease of those organs, should be most careful not to inhale the products of the combustion of the “serpents' eggs”; and in all cases great care should be taken that the room in which these toys are burned be freely ventilated. So satisfied are the authorities in Prussia of their deleterious properties, that the Government has forbidden their sale except by persons who are specially authorized to sell poisons.”

At about the same time, English poet Charles Tennyson Turner - brother to the British poet laureate, Alfred, Lord Tennyson – teased his niece, Agnes, upon receipt of one of the toys, also hinting at their danger:

“I return you in a manner good for evil, viz., two respectable sonnets…in return for a poisonous serpent, for this Pharaoh's Serpent has got into the newspapers… and is represented as very dangerous for children and even adults. It is composed of the most deleterious material, and, moreover, looks like a sweetmeat, and whether burnt or inadvertently eaten by a hapless bairn, will work its woe. We have not tried it yet, partly because we thought a tiny or two of our village might like to see it. But we shall give it, knowing its awful character, in private and with precautions. What do you mean, you apparently harmless female hobble-de-hoy, by sending down to our unsophisticated village this fragment of ancient Egypt! Your horned poppy and shingle-grown nightshade are better.”

A humorous incident, reported in newspapers across the country in spring 1866, occurred when a fidgety boy in Quincy, Illinois, played with the toy in an unlikely place:

“A young man named Spencer went to church…with some matches and some ‘eggs of Pharaoh’s serpents’ in his pocket. The sermon was long and the young man became uneasy; the matches were lighted by the friction caused by his movements, the eggs hatched, and the serpents made their way out of his pocket, wriggling and squirming with a great and disagreeable smell of burning chemicals. The congregation were greatly scandalized, and the clergyman considered the illustration of his denunciations of the wicked a very feeble one.”

But all was not fun-and-games. Other papers carried a report on a terrible incident in which three men were killed in London, “while engaged in the manufacture of so-called ‘Pharaoh’s serpents,’ the composition having exploded.” At about the same time, The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal published descriptions of two case studies; in one, a woman presented herself with “eruptions” on her face and body, which the examining surgeon attributed to the gases from the “Pharaoh’s serpents” with which she had been playing.

In the other case, a woman arrived at Massachusetts General Hospital with similar skin eruptions. The journal reported that her son, “had broken up several of these ‘eggs’ in his pocket and had handled the fragments freely. She had mended his pockets the night before the eruption showed itself, and had removed the debris with her fingers without washing her hands before going to bed.” The doctor further declared that “violent inflammation of the lungs had ensued in one case after inhalation of the vapor arising from the combustion of these little toys, and that in Europe several cases of poisoning had occurred from eating them by mistake for bonbons.”

Like many “must have” gifts, the fascination with “Pharaoh’s serpents” began to wane by the next holiday season, due in no small part to reports of the dangers in playing with them. Other toys – many of them chemical tricks – were popular by Christmas in 1866, including “magic photographs,” “rainbow bubbles,” “Japanese fireworks,” and “crocodiles’ tears,” which consisted of potassium in a soluble casing that blazed when thrown into water.

Today’s “black snakes” are made of safer materials and continue to entertain (in fact, people began to suggest safer alternatives in 1866). Still, the 1865 toy left an interesting social, scientific, and medical legacy.

"After Action Report" - McHenry County (IL) Civil War Symposium!

I had the great privilege of being invited to speak at the 2009 Fall Civil War Symposium put on by the great folks at the McHenry County (IL) Civil War Round Table (CWRT). The event was this past Saturday (14 November) and I had a wonderful time. As I've mentioned on the blog before, it was all the more enjoyable because it was my "hometown" CWRT when I lived in the far NW Chicago 'burbs, and it was just great to get to see some old friends!

I spoke first about my book, Lincoln's Labels, and got some great questions!

Next up was Fr. Robert J. Miller to talk about Jesuit chaplains during the war, whom he termed "God's Storm Troopers." It was a great lecture. I've been looking forward to meeting Fr. Miller ever since I saw his Abraham Lincoln Book Shop "Virtual Book Signing" event (see link here and go to 20 October 2007 event) about his book, Both Prayed to the Same God: Religion and Faith in the American Civil War. He also has a website.

After a nice lunch, next up was Dr. Richard Zevitz, a professor in the Department of Cultural and Social Sciences at Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI. He is the author of several publications relating to the criminal justice field. Dr. Zevitz discussed the conditions that existed in most prison camps, the treatment of prisoners, and the justification used by the Union and Confederate governments to justify such treatment. He specifically discussed the POW camp at Camp randall in Madison, WI, which was actually a new subject to me.

Finally, Robert Girardi talked about "General Impressions," that is, what generals had to say about other generals, and many times it was pithy, biting, and uncomplimentary, which maf\de it all the more fun! Robert Girardi is a past president of the Civil War Table of Chicago (as is Fr. Miller!), and currently serves as the Vice President of the Salt Creek Round Table. He earned his MA in Public History at Loyola University of Chicago, and he has had a life long fascination with the Civil War. He is a well travelled speaker and audiences around the United States have experienced his presentations. Girardi has authored or edited seven books and is currently employed as a homicide detective by the Chicago Police Department. You can learn more about Robert and his books at his website.

Also there was Civil War bookseller Bob Murphy, who was kind enough to stock up on my books, as well as Fr. Miller's and Robert Girardi's several books.

It was a great time. Now it's on with the rest of my 2009-2010 speaking schedule! Austin, Youngstown, and Minneapolis, here I come!

A Primer on Phrenology in the Civil War - Part II - "Americanizing" Phrenology

I'm pleased to continue my "primer" on the origins and popularity of phrenology in the 19th century, especially during the Civil War...see Part I (Origins).

Americanizing Phrenology

In 1832, Spurzheim began a lecture tour in the United States. Although phrenology was not entirely new to Americans, Spurzheim’s tour sparked an interest that spread very rapidly.

Indeed – phrenology had a special appeal to Americans:

Jacksonian America was ripe for ideas such as Spurzheim’s which provided a scientific – and (apparently) factual – basis for making each person the master of their own destiny. The individual was perfectable and phrenology offered a combination of the practical and ideal which could also lead to the perfection of society. Furthermore, it valued initiative and perseverance more than the preferential treatment that advanced the lives and careers of the privileged.

Spurzheim’s lectures became a national phenomenon but he died in Boston only two months into his American tour, and phrenology had lost one of its most effective missionaries.

However, others were there to take his place:

The Fowlers

Orson S. Fowler was studying for the ministry at Amherst and by 1832 was obsessed with Spurzheim’s theories of phrenology. A fellow student – Henry Ward Beecher – engaged in a friendly public debate with Fowler over the merits of phrenology, Beecher taking the negative.

Although Beecher won the debate, he startled his audience by immediately proclaiming himself a convert to phrenology.

Fired by his own interest and taking advantage of the nation’s interest, Fowler quit his religious studies and devoted his energies to crusading for phrenology. In a short time, he drew in his family as associates, includinghis brother, Lorenzo; his sister, Charlotte; Lorenzo’s wife, Lydia (Folger) and Charlotte’s husband, Samuel Wells. Their business – Fowler and Wells – became quite famous.

Due to their energies – and their business – they reduced the emphasis on the theoretical aspects of phrenology and introduced what they called “practical phrenology” – a science that reached out to everyone at all levels of society; not just the elite.

They took over the the American Phrenological Journal – which became the official organ of the movement. They also published many books, including The Self-Instructor (full text of 1857 edition here) – an instructional guide for the subject to use as a program of self-analysis and improvement. Each copy was designed as a self-contained introduction to phrenology, complete with philosophy, definitions, explanatory instructions, charts, diagrams, and illustrations. They also established a brick-and-mortar emporium – the “phrenological cabinet” – which became an essential sightseeing destination in New York, second only to PT Barnum’s museum.

Through their publications and instruction, they also gave birth to a large number of itinerant practical phrenologists. One authority has calculated that about 20,000 such phrenologists plied their trade in the 19th century. Whatever their number, they certainly visited almost every town, village, and city in the Union. One claimed that he had examined over 200,000 heads in his career.

One such phrenologist visited the hometown of Ulysses Grant when he was just a child, and his father remembered:

“When Ulysses was about twelve years old, the first phrenologist who ever made his appearance in that part of the country came to our neighborhood…they brought Ulysses forward to have his head examined. He felt it all over for some time, saying to himself: ‘It is no very common head! It is an extraordinary head!’…[a doctor] broke in with the inquiry whether the boy would be likely to distinguish himself in mathematics. ‘Yes,’ said the phrenologist, ‘in mathematics or anything else. It would not be strange if we should see him President of

Of course, Grant was an unknown at that time, but other more famous personalities did not just have their heads examined, but also accepted the science:

Louisa May Alcott, Susan B Anthony, John James Audubon, Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens, Winslow Homer, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Julia Ward Howe, Herman Melville, Edgar Allen Poe, Queen Victoria, and many others. Some even became models of certain faculties in the Self-Instructor. For example, Poe was the representative of “mental or nervous temperament”; Dickens displayed a large “organ of language”

Walt Whitman was associated with Fowler and Wells as early as 1846 and for a brief time was employed as a staff writer at the Journal. Whitman was read by Lorenzo Fowler in 1849 and it had a profound impact on the poet. He kept the chart until the end of his life and had it published several times. It was Fowler and Wells that published the first edition of Whitman’s famous collection, Leaves of Grass, which many see as something as a gospel of phrenology.

Lorenzo also did a reading of a then-15 year old Clara Barton. He boarded with the Barton during a lecture tour and Mrs. Barton took advantage of the stay to ask for advice on her hyper-sensitive and shy daughter, Clara. Lorenzo’s advice was to “Throw responsibility on her; she will never assert for herself – she will suffer wrong first – but for others she will be perfectly fearless.”

Coming soon - Part III - Phrenology and the Civil War!

A World War I Letter from the "Schmidt Collection" to Commemorate Veteran's Day

A happy Veteran's Day to all our servicemen and women and veterans out there, including my Grandpa Alvin Weigel (WWII, 70th ID, 725th FAB, Battery B), my uncles (Air Force and Army, Vietnam and Cold War), my daughter's boyfriend, John (Marines, Iraq), and everyone else in my family who has served with honor.

Below is an interesting (and even cheeky!) letter from small (but growing!) collection of ephemera, written by an American doughboy on his way across the Atlantic. Enjoy!

(Undated)

(It's hard to put a heading to this letter because we don't stay in the same place - but I'll try)

On a large body of water (Name concealed by camouflage)

Location:

65(degrees) Fahrenheit
20(degrees) Centigrade

Going East

Time: (10 o'clock when I looked but it may be 12 now for all I know the way time flies on this boat. I hope it don;t change at meal time any more!)

Now I calculate it's nigh time to start the letter

Dear Roberta:

Please pardon the junk up above. I am the company censor, not only reading the letters of 250 men, but also my own. So I like to vary them a little to break the monotony. I may be conceited but I really enjoy reading my own letters most.

In fact what I read is mostly my own letters for part of my men can't read or write, you know. Rather fortunate for the censor. Then besides I have cautioned my men so carefully that when they do write they don’t write much. Also fortunate for me. Oh! Fine.

Oh yes! One thing I forgot in the heading - the date. But it is not best for official censors to give dates. I don’t know about making them. I can't talk French anyway. But my acting first sergeant taught it 4 years so I shall use him as my interpreter.

I still have your good letter which I answered from the guard house but I'll answer it again. It's the one with the touching close - the bit of verse about Lizzie. No, your hopes were realized. I had not heard it before.

I wonder if you are still keeping house. I had a hunch that your mother had gone to camp with Zibby and would spend the summer there. I would, had I been in her place. Knowing that the Gilmore family was in such good hands, she need not have worried. Probably by the time this letter reaches you, your mother and Zibby will have returned. I make a guess that this letter reaches you August 20th. See how close I come to it. So if your mother is back by then you will have plenty of time. To get ready for school. You only need a few days anyway. A sophomore needs less preparation anyway. Duck a few freshmen for me this fall, if you please.

Speaking of ducking, we have gotten along very nicely on our trip so far. This finishes our eleventh day. Thanks to the U.S. Navy we have not had to resort to swimming. Some of these perfect days with the sea very clam, I would not mind going for a row in one of these boats we have strung along the upper deck, or take a ride on a raft. But I'd hate to have to get up at midnight and take a dive, all for the sake of some sub captain getting an iron cross. I guess there are more of them getting wooden crosses than iron ones these days. The more the merrier.

When I wrote to Hazel I raved a lot about the wonderful U.S. Navy. I do in all my letters. So I won’t rave about it so much to you. All that I will say is that I am strong for that service. I've seen some mighty impressive things on this trip. There is one feeling that I do get from watching these ships, day by day, forging steady Eastward. That is the feeling that the Huns, with all their system and fiendish methods, can never stop the U.S. It's a confidence that you can't get in the training camps back home. And it's a confidence that will probably be greatly increased after we land in France and see the preparations our country has made and the work they are doing. That's the only time I feel serious, Roberta.

I am enjoying this trip so much that I sometimes find it hard to realize that there is a war ahead. I thought of it tonite while we sat at supper. All the navy officers, from lieutenants to senior grade to boatswain, chatting gayly, and we army officers feeling just as good but sobered a little by some wonderful old pieces that the steward was turning off on the Victrola. It seemed to me then sort of like a dream - until the sailors came in, making their rounds of closing the portholes to shut off all light. Then I came to earth again.

The time was moved up to that of our final destination today and it gave us a long evening. We are now 5 hours ahead of New York time, so the sun was unusually high at 7:30 when the boatswain's mate came swinging down the deck, blowing his queer sounding whistle and in a deep voice announcing - "There will be no more smoking above decks." These sailors, especially the old timers, are a great bunch. Most of the lads here are young and fairly new to the service. They are very optimistic and expect the war to be over very soon. So do the officers, except the captain, by rank a lieutenant commander, who thinks it will be six years. I hope he is far sighted (meant literally).

The time has gone by fast for me on this trip. I sure have enjoyed it. Have had more leisure time than I will have for some time after I land.

Our YMCA secretary on board is an interesting man. He is Prof. Lockwood , a teacher of English Lit. He was at Allegheny College for 15 years and claimed he is familiar with all of western Pennsylvania. Says he has made commencement addresses and prohibition talks and Teddy Roosevelt speeches all thru those counties. Did ever hear of him or hear him?

Have you people been to Pumpkintown yet? I'm wondering if by chance I shall see Clare over here. I had it sort of figured out that Hazel's brother might be somewhere in this convoy but he may have gone last week. Oh it’s a big world. Oh! Fine! Give my best regards to your father and to Hugh and Zibo and Gertrude and Franklin.

Sincerely,

Howard
Censored HZ Brant, 2nd Lt

A Primer on Phrenology in the Civil War - Part I - Origins

Last month, at the Seventeenth Annual Conference on Civil War Medicine sponsored by the National Museum of Civil War Medicine, I had the great privilege and pleasure of delivering a lecture entitled, "It's All in Your Head: Phrenology and the American Civil War."

One of the best sources to learn about phrenology and the Civil War is the wartime pages of the American Phrenological Journal. Indeed, phrenology enjoyed its greatest popularity during the Civil War era, and during the war, the Journal published phrenological profiles of the senior members of the Union officer corps as well as leading politicians, commenting on how they manifested (or didn’t) the more than two dozen “organs” of the brain, such as courage, pride, vanity, perseverance, guile, etc.

I have many wartime issues of the Journal in my own collection, and over the next few weeks will be sharing some of these phrenological "readings" here on the blog. In advance of that, though, I thought a quick primer on 19th-century-phrenology would be helpful:

Definitions of Phrenology

Proper = A theory stating that the personality traits of a person can be derived from the shape of the skull; from φρήν, phrēn, "mind“and λόγος, logos, "knowledge."

Humorous = "The science of picking the pocket through the scalp. It consists in locating and exploiting the organ that one is a dupe with." - The Devil’s Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce

Basic Principles of Phrenology

1) The brain is the organ of the mind (just as the ear is the organ of hearing)
2) The mind is not homogenous or a single unit, bur rather, is made up of independent and identifiable “faculties” – i.e. – individual capacities or character traits
3) These faculties lie at certain sites – or organs – of the brain – e.g., the organ for the faculty of “Benevolence” is located in the high frontal area of the brain
4) The degree of development of these organs affects the size and shape of corresponding areas of the skull

Therefore, someone who knows how to “read” the cranium according to these tenets has an instant and intimate knowledge of the person they are examining. The most exciting part of phrenology, though, was that one could “exercise” certain organs to increase or decrease a particular faculty, thereby perfecting oneself – and society.

Origins

Phrenology was the creation of Franz Joseph Gall, a prominent physician and physiologist in Vienna, Austria. In his student days, he began to suspect that correlations existed between certain features of people’s heads and their personalities and abilities.

From his observation, Gall gradually developed the science of phrenology and the basic principles described above. In 1802, the Austrian government condemned Gall’s ideas as atheistic, materialistic, and morally subversive, and forbade him from continuing with his lectures in the country. Thus effectively exiled, Gall embarked on a European lecture tour and gained an international reputation, eventually settling in Paris.

He brought with him a student and fellow lecturer: Johann Gaspar Spurzheim. Gall and Spurzheim began to go in different directions with their thoughts on phrenology. Gall’s view of mankind was rather aristocratic and pessimistic and he saw phrenology as a useful tool of the powerful elite who could learn to use phrenology as a tool to rule others more effectively.

Spurzheim, on the other hand, was more philosophical and saw phrenology as a social philosophy that served as a foundation to empower the entire human race – to perfect itself and its institutions. As such, Spurzheim was a new breed: more than a lecturer – indeed, a missionary, crusader, and apostle.

Spurzheim began his work by going to Scotland and England where he received a polite but not especially enthusiastic reception. However –a young lawyer – George Comb – became a dedicated convert and established a society. He was very dedicated and carried the message of phrenology throughout Europe and America. Indeed, when Spurzheim dies in 1832, Comb took his place as the world’s most prominent theoretical proponent of phrenology. By the late 1820s, many phrenological societies had been formed in various parts of Great Britain and they published widely and prolifically, resulting in a more positive reputation for phrenology in Britain, if not wholeheartedly popular.

One of the problems was that the science – such as it was – remained too theoretical to garner much ground or appeal, and the societies were small and served little function except as upper-class debating societies which matched Gall’s model more than that of Spurzheim. The question then, was how to awaken a more general interest and application to achieve a more widespread and popular base.

The answer to that questions comes soon in Part II - Americanizing Phrenology!