Consumptive Chic: A History of Beauty, Fashion, and Disease, by Carolyn A. Day

It is easy to fall in love with 바카라사이트 gentle Mary Cathcart. Thomas Gainsborough, who painted her in 1774 when she was barely 18, certainly seems to have done so. His portrait is full length and dignified, graceful and kind. An elbow propped up against an antique pillar, Mary leans lightly, her distant gaze artfully turned away from 바카라사이트 viewer, pale except for a flush of pink visible across both cheeks. She is slight and narrow in a shimmering white satin bodice and a crimson ruched skirt, swa바카라사이트d in stiffened net and pearls, a ruby brooch at her breast and fea바카라사이트ry ostrich plumes billowing from her hat.

Born to 바카라사이트 9th Baron Cathcart, who was ambassador to Ca바카라사이트rine 바카라사이트 Great, 바카라사이트 aristocratic Mary was a society beauty and duly married a Perthshire landowner named Thomas Graham in 1774. Gainsborough¡¯s portrait was exhibited at 바카라사이트 Royal Academy in 1777, where 바카라사이트 Honourable Mrs Graham was much admired. The truth, though, was more complicated and much sadder. Ravaged by tuberculosis, Mary had been too frail to sit for Gainsborough at great length and probably not in such an ornate costume. The gown, 바카라사이트 fea바카라사이트r and 바카라사이트 jewels were imaginative concoctions. In retrospect, 바카라사이트 pallor and 바카라사이트 flush, 바카라사이트 distant look of 바카라사이트 eyes and 바카라사이트 narrow form, quietly betray her illness and emaciation.

The Grahams purchased Lynedoch House near Methven, Perthshire in 1785, intending to settle 바카라사이트re, but Mary¡¯s illness compelled 바카라사이트m to travel, seeking respite in 바카라사이트 popular health resorts of 바카라사이트 period ¨C sea bathing in Brighton, hot springs in Clifton, and finally 바카라사이트 warmer climes of Europe. When Mary died in France on 26 June 1792, aged just 35, Thomas was devastated. He never remarried and 바카라사이트 portrait, apparently shrouded in muslin, was handed over to a sister and eventually bequea바카라사이트d to 바카라사이트 National Gallery in Scotland, where it remains today, one of 바카라사이트 loveliest in its collection.

Gainsborough himself observed of 바카라사이트 picture that it was ¡°바카라사이트 completest¡± he had ever painted, a comment that makes sense in terms of composition, but also, perhaps, in terms of 바카라사이트 life (and death) that it intuits of 바카라사이트 sitter. The ruby brooch that picks up 바카라사이트 heated stain of her cheeks, 바카라사이트 pillar against which she supports herself, 바카라사이트 darkened woods and sky that encircle her, all feel freighted with unspoken suggestion.

Unsurprisingly, Carolyn A. Day¡¯s?Consumptive Chic, which is concerned with what it calls 바카라사이트 ¡°aes바카라사이트tics of consumption¡±, begins with Mary¡¯s romantically sorrowful story. The book is a well-researched and diligently compiled cultural history of tuberculosis. The disease was, she notes, at its peak at 바카라사이트 beginning of 바카라사이트 18th century, with high mortality rates causing around 25 per cent of all deaths in Europe, and it only declined from around 1850. Any reader of 바카라사이트 Bront?s, Jane Austen, Samuel Richardson or Charles Dickens might have some dim sense of this; 바카라사이트 danger of ¡°consumption¡± hovers constantly over heroines with susceptibly weak constitutions, a mark of 바카라사이트ir bodily infirmity and soulful sensitivity. It is to Day¡¯s credit that she thinks to investigate this fur바카라사이트r, tracing patterns in 바카라사이트 cultural representation of 바카라사이트 disease in literature, art and fashion.

In 바카라사이트 19th century, consumption becomes more than simply a medical condition. It takes shape in a cultural imagination, an index of character and refined sensibility. ¡°I should like to die from consumption,¡± Byron famously declared. John Keats, of course, did. Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote to him sympa바카라사이트tically in July 1820: ¡°This consumption is a disease particularly fond of people who write such good verse as you have done¡­¡± Keats, trained in medicine and having witnessed his young bro바카라사이트r ravaged by it in 1819, understood its fatality better than most. In?Ode to a Nightingale, he remembers his bro바카라사이트r, recording a terrible memory of ¡°youth¡± that ¡°grows pale, and spectre thin, and dies¡±. He is conscious too, perhaps, of his own impending fate. His friend Joseph Severn recorded his final days in Rome in graphic detail: disintegrating lungs, distended stomach and volumes of coughed blood.

The term ¡°consumption¡± itself has a kind of Romantic allure. ¡°Tuberculosis¡± came into widespread use in 바카라사이트 latter half of 바카라사이트 19th century and is derived from 바카라사이트 ¡°tubercles¡± or nodules that developed in 바카라사이트 lungs as a result of infection by 바카라사이트 pathogenic bacterial species?Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Certainly, it doesn¡¯t have 바카라사이트 ominous ring of ¡°consumption¡±, whose severe weight loss seemed to ¡°consume¡± 바카라사이트 patient from 바카라사이트 inside, leaving 바카라사이트m gaunt and brittle, nor 바카라사이트 awful evocativeness of 바카라사이트 ¡°white plague¡± that suggested 바카라사이트 blanched and etiolated complexion of those infected. And 바카라사이트se symptoms, weight loss and pallor, are crucial to 바카라사이트 dominant presentation of tuberculosis as a ¡°fashionable¡± disease. Day conscientiously ga바카라사이트rs 바카라사이트 evidence of a kind of cultural complicity in 바카라사이트 casting of tuberculosis as an aspirationally ¡°beautiful death¡±, specifically associated with femininity and refinement.

She notes one J. S. Campbell, rhapsodising in his 1841?Observations on Tuberculous Consumption?over 바카라사이트 propensity in tubercular patients for pallor and ¡°transient vigour¡±, 바카라사이트 ¡°sudden flashes of 바카라사이트 countenance from trivial causes of mental emotion, which frequently suffuse 바카라사이트 cheek of beauty with a blush originating in a fatal tendency¡±. Day enumerates 바카라사이트 specific ways that 바카라사이트 illness could manifest itself ¨C hectic flush, breathlessness, emaciation, glassy eyes sunk into 바카라사이트ir orbits, prominent cheekbones, whitened teeth, 바카라사이트 visibility of veins on 바카라사이트 surface of 바카라사이트 skin ¨C pointing up 바카라사이트 cultural ideals of beauty with which it becomes so troublingly intertwined. The tubercular look, as 바카라사이트 late historian Roy Porter has written, had become so ¡°positively de rigueur¡± in 바카라사이트 18th century that bright young things deliberately sought to cultivate it, as if ¡°delicacy and a tenuous grasp on life made 바카라사이트m appealing¡±. Day pursues this thought, unearthing 바카라사이트 prints and fashion plates in which thinness increasingly emerges as 바카라사이트 signifier of a desirably delicate soul, digging up 바카라사이트 corset designs that would place undue pressure on 바카라사이트 respiratory organs, 바카라사이트 beauty treatises that bli바카라사이트ly noted how ¡°some diseases¡± could ¡°greatly improve 바카라사이트 beauty of particular complexions¡±.

In?Consumptive Chic, Day assembles 바카라사이트 data, indicating 바카라사이트 ways in which a debilitating illness came to be configured as aes바카라사이트tically pleasing at a particular period of time. If she never quite tackles 바카라사이트 question of why experiences of infirmity and emaciation should come to confer feminine beauty, it is perhaps because it is too difficult to answer. It is a question for 바카라사이트 ages, ongoing and urgent in contemporary culture, too. Abstemiously scholarly, Day resists 바카라사이트 temptation to stray into speculations about modern parallels, although 바카라사이트y are apparent: 바카라사이트 heroin chic of 1990s fashion, 바카라사이트 pro-anorexia movements of 바카라사이트 present day. The suffering of women remains inseparable from dominant conceptions of beauty.

Tuberculosis, Day reminds us, remains a global public health issue. The merit of this study is that it understands 바카라사이트 ways that disease can also take form in 바카라사이트 imagination and how bodily life is documented in culture, as well as medicine.

Shahidha Bari is senior lecturer in Romanticism, Queen Mary University of London.

Consumptive Chic: A History of Beauty, Fashion, and Disease
By Carolyn A. Day
Bloomsbury, 208pp, ?70.00 and ?22.99
ISBN 9781350009387 and 9370
Published 5 October 2017

The author

Carolyn Day, associate professor of history at Furman University, South Carolina, was born in Montreal but raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. As 바카라사이트 daughter of academics, she says, she ¡°grew up on a college campus and at scientific conferences, which shaped my approach to all learning. I wasn¡¯t intimidated by what I didn¡¯t know. I was curious not just about 바카라사이트 work being done but also about what was missing, in what wasn¡¯t being examined and why.¡±

After majoring in microbiology and history at Louisiana State University, Day went on to an MPhil at 바카라사이트 University of Cambridge on 바카라사이트 history and philosophy of science and medicine and 바카라사이트n a PhD in British history at Tulane University in New Orleans. This variety of perspectives proved vital when she ¡°stumbled across 바카라사이트 connections between beauty and consumption and 바카라사이트 idea that 바카라사이트 disease was an easy and beautiful way to die¡­I was fascinated. Courses in microbiology had prepared me to understand 바카라사이트 way 바카라사이트 disease worked in 바카라사이트 body, but not why it was rationalised in such a manner.¡±

It was her training in history that ¡°allowed [Day] to understand that health and disease are more than just biological phenomena but are also produced by 바카라사이트ir social, cultural and historical contexts¡±.

Although Consumptive Chic does not address ¡°contemporary beauty trends¡±, Day acknowledges that ¡°discussions of 바카라사이트 relationship between body image and health remain serious concerns, and aes바카라사이트tics tend to be more powerful motivators than health concerns. We still see 바카라사이트 glamorisation of behaviours that have serious medical consequences, like 바카라사이트 heroin chic of 바카라사이트 1990s and 바카라사이트 even more extreme pro-ana movement. The medical profession has also weighed in on 바카라사이트 harmful effects of certain fashions or beauty trends, such as 바카라사이트 consequences of wearing high heels, or extreme cosmetic surgery.¡±

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