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- [00:00]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
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- [00:19]
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- [00:51]
Genevieve Manion
Hello and welcome to My Victorian Nightmare. I'm your host, Genevieve Manion, and I'm here to talk about mysterious deaths, morbid fascinations, disturbing stories, and otherwise spooky events from the Victorian era. Because to me, there's just something especially intriguing, creepy and oddly comforting about horror and mayhem from the 19th century. So listener discretion is adv. Hello friends, and welcome to this, my 96th episode. And have I got an ominous and creepy factoid packed show for you Today, the Victorian era was filled with inhumane and diabolically macabre medical exploration. But in some of the darkest corners of medical schools, the old sawbones discovered cures for diseases, techniques to ease pain, and invented astounding machines that helped us see into the human body in ways we never dreamed possible. And in 1855, a not particularly revolutionary medically scientific discovery led directly to a man's murder case exoneration, 65 years later, a murder that even he believed that he committed himself. Victorians lived with death in ways that are almost unimaginable today. And with that closeness came an entire world of super superstitions and supernatural beliefs. Funeral rain was considered the tears of angels. A grave where nothing grew could mean a soul didn't make it to heaven. And simply spilling salt could mean certain doom for you. Today, dear listener, I will be discussing fascinating superstitions and beliefs that Victorians held about death and cemeteries, as well as some of the origins of those beliefs. And I will discuss how medical science in the new 19th century wasn't just horrific, it was groundbreaking. And not only developed cures, treatments and techniques that we still use today to save lives, but how medical science in the Victorian era led to astounding developments in forensic science that we still use to catch killers and exonerate the innocent.
- [03:20]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
But First, I have a very special announcement. I did something that I should have done when I started the show. It has taken me almost 100 episodes to get my act together. But I have a newsletter now. And it's not just any newsletter.
- [03:35]
Genevieve Manion
I obviously will have updates about the show. I'll add images that correspond with the episodes, but I'm also going to share some of my favorite fabulously horrifying illustrated police news illustrations and adventures with Toby, my little Pomeranian.
- [03:53]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
He has such a fascinating little life,
- [03:55]
Genevieve Manion
so I will share his exploits as well. And cocktail recipes because I love to share them. And movie recommendations and fun spooky stuff like that. So to subscribe you'll find a link in the show Notes along with the link to join the Patreon where I share true crime extras, witchy content, dark poetry and this show right here, Adri
- [04:12]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
and speaking of Patreon, thank you everyone who has joined.
- [04:18]
Genevieve Manion
If you joined between April 20 and May 25, if you haven't already received your token of mine and Toby's appreciation, you will soon. I still have some more to send out, so keep an eye on your mailboxes.
- [04:32]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
And finally, if you want to hear me gabbing about witchcraft, hair art, how
- [04:37]
Genevieve Manion
and why I started my show, I had a lovely interview with Julia Granacchi on her podcast Agecraft After Dark, so make sure to find it anywhere you find your podcasts. This episode of My Victorian Nightmare is brought to you by Alloy Health. My poor mother had menopause for a full decade. She suffered so terribly with insomnia, weight gain, mood swings and was desperately trying anything that she could. But nothing helped because of women like her who never stopped complaining that no one was taking women seriously. We finally have menopause specialized doctors at Alloy Health that can actually help us get through this tricky time. Your perimenopause and menopause symptoms are treatable. Almost half of women go at least three years before even considering treating their symptoms. And it makes sense why 43% of women's say that their doctors still dismiss their symptoms and never even mention hormone replacement therapy. Luckily, Alloy can help. Alloy offers unlimited access to expert physicians and safe science backed treatments for your symptoms. Whether you're dealing with hot flashes, night sweats, weight gain, or maybe you're interested in osteoporosis prevention. All you have to do is complete the intake form and then you'll be paired with a doctor to create a specialized treatment plan just for you. You'll get a three month supply and prescriptions delivered to your door with all automatic refills. I cannot recommend Alloy enough. Join the 95% of women who tried Alloy and saw relief within the first two weeks. Head to myalloi.com and use code Victorian and tell them all about your symptoms and you'll get a fully customized treatment plan and unlimited messaging with your doctor. Plus, you'll get $20 off your first order today. Head to my-a l l o y.com and use code Victorian to get $20 off your first order. Okay, let's begin with some Victorian superstitions about death and cemeteries. In my second episode, the Victorian Cult of Death, I discussed a few Victorian traditions around death, like the rules related to mourning clothing, how long you were expected to wear black, how they covered mirrors to prevent the spirit of their dead loved ones from seeing their reflections and getting too attached to this world, preventing them from moving on. I mentioned how bodies would be taken out of houses in their coffins feet first, so that the spirit still in the body couldn't face a family member and beckon them to join them in death on their way out of the house. But Victorians had so many superstitions about death, graveyards, what to wear to funerals,
- [07:09]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
and most importantly, what not to wear
- [07:11]
Genevieve Manion
to funerals, what the weather at your funeral said about you, etc. So let's discuss a few interesting superstitions and beliefs. Victorians believed that you could tell a lot about a person by what grew or didn't grow on their graves or the state of the grave. For example, if flowers bloomed on a grave, it meant that someone lived a prosperous life, and a grave sinking or collapsing was sometimes viewed as a more ominous sign. In folk beliefs, it could suggest unrest, hidden sin, or that that person went
- [07:44]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
to hell, or that another death in
- [07:47]
Genevieve Manion
the family was soon to come. Apart from flowers, thick grass growing on graves was interpreted as evidence that the deceased was at peace.
- [07:57]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
Graves where nothing would grow would carry
- [07:59]
Genevieve Manion
a much darker meaning. It was often interpreted as reflecting a troubled soul or the person was morally corrupt in life. In older English and Western European folklore, this could be also interpreted as vampirism or spiritual unrest. Vampirism not meaning Dracula vampirism, but tuberculosis vampirism. I discussed in episode six that many people believed that the disease of consumption tuberculosis, a disease as we think of diseases, but the work of a demon that had possessed a dead body within its grave, sucking the life out of
- [08:39]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
its family members from the grave.
- [08:41]
Genevieve Manion
This belief was also found in New England throughout the 1800s as well, so it wasn't just Europe. An overgrown grave was a deeply upsetting vision in the 1800s.
- [08:53]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
It's still upsetting and for the same reason.
- [08:54]
Genevieve Manion
It showed that a person had been forgotten. But back then, there was even more tragic tragedy to it. It was believed that a spirit would feel forgotten if its grave was overgrown. I don't know if we feel that quite so deeply now, Although I do love videos of people cleaning graves.
- [09:14]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
That's something that I would love to do one day. My Victoria nightmare field trip.
- [09:17]
Genevieve Manion
Grave scrubbing.
- [09:18]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
And we'll bring some EVP recorders so that we can talk to them. If anyone has done that before or
- [09:22]
Genevieve Manion
knows how to, or has the devices and lives in New York, let me know. I would seriously love to do that. Cracks appearing in gravestones were sometimes interpr as an omen of a family misfortune or spiritual disturbance, Especially if it appeared shortly after a burial. Oh, and I love this. Animals appearing around graves had a very significant meaning. For example, birds nesting nearby suggested that a soul ascended to heaven, Whereas black dogs, crows, or ravens, as we know, were considered bad omens. And butterflies were associated with the soul and resurrection. But I love how now when people see butterflies lies around graves or at special events like weddings, they believe they are the soul of a loved one coming in that form. I believe this is because of the influence of Mexico's Dia de los Muertos that has become more deeply understood in American culture over the past few years. The monarch butterfly's migration through the United States between August and November down to Mexico symbolizes the souls of loved ones returning for the Day of the Dead in November. I was with a friend.
- [10:36]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
Happened one day in Greenwood Cemetery last
- [10:38]
Genevieve Manion
year toward the end of the summer, when there were still flowers, but everything was like turning gold. And there were so many monarchs making their way through the cemetery, flitting in the flowers. It brought a tear to my eye, thinking they may be spirits on their way. Oh, and the unexplained smell of perfume near a grave became interpreted in spiritualist communities as an angelic visitation. It meant that an angel was walking by your loved one's grave. Victorians also paid close attention to how quickly flowers placed on graves wilted.
- [11:14]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
If they died quickly, it was interpreted
- [11:16]
Genevieve Manion
as meaning that the spirit of their loved one was disturbed, or worse, being tormented in the afterlife. But if the flower lasted longer than they usually would, it would be seen as a comforting sign of enduring love and a spirit at peace living a heavenly, everlasting life. That makes me think of a shot
- [11:36]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
in Bram Stoker's Dracula right before Lucy gets killed by Dracula as a wolf that, like, busts through the door. That wild scene with the huge splashes of blood.
- [11:44]
Genevieve Manion
There's a shot of the flowers quickly dying right beside her bed as he approaches. Perhaps that imagery is tied in some way to this belief about flowers dying when spirits are tormented. Oh, and the weather during a Victorian funeral was also considered deeply symbolic. Rain wasn't a bad thing. It represented cleansing, mourning by heaven and the peaceful passage of the soul. It also could mean that the soul had reached heaven and God was washing away all earthly sins. It could also be interpreted as angels or God himself crying and mourning along with the family. But it wasn't always considered a good thing. Gentle rain was considered comforting and sacred. But a violent thunderstorm could be interpreted as ominous, suggesting a not so positive recept at the pearly gates. A particularly interesting belief to me was that it was bad luck to happen upon a funeral procession. And if you did, you either needed
- [12:45]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
to turn right around and go the
- [12:47]
Genevieve Manion
other way or hold onto a button
- [12:50]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
until you got to your destination.
- [12:52]
Genevieve Manion
I looked into this one. This superstition goes way back in English folk traditions. Many Victorians believed that funeral processions carried a powerful spiritual energy. And encountering one improperly, properly, like just happening upon one out of the blue,
- [13:09]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
turning the corner and oops, there's a
- [13:10]
Genevieve Manion
funeral procession could invite death, illness or misfortune.
- [13:15]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
In a time where there were many funeral processions everywhere all the time, this
- [13:20]
Genevieve Manion
was a likely event to happen upon. So Victorians came up with the elaborate customs to protect themselves.
- [13:26]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
Again, first and foremost, turn right back around and whatever you do, do not cut through a funeral procession or you are doomed. If there's nothing you can do, you can't turn around.
- [13:37]
Genevieve Manion
A docum folk custom in parts of Britain and even America during the 19th century was to touch and hold a button while the funeral procession passed. Holding the button would prevent death from following you. You could hold onto a coat button. A rosary for Catholics or even coins could also save you from certain doom. Historians trace the button holding to protective talisman, folk magic. Circular objects were often associated with continuity, protection or breaking supernatural influen. Must hold onto the button until you arrive at your destination, or some believed, until you crossed a body of water, which was believed to break spiritual attachment. Oh, and looking into the hearse was also considered by some to be dangerous. In some traditions, seeing your reflection in a hearse with a glass encasement or making eye contact with someone in mourning
- [14:31]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
could mean you were next. Speaking of you were next, a few things that meant you were gonna die. Smelling roses out of nowhere meant someone maybe was about to die. If you wore something new to a
- [14:44]
Genevieve Manion
funeral, especially new shoes, that was it for you.
- [14:47]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
You're gonna die.
- [14:48]
Genevieve Manion
This was seen as tempting fate, that you believed being fashionable was more important than grief. Clocks would be stopped in a house where someone had just died to ensure that time stood still, to prevent anyone else from dying in the family and to show reverence to the dead. Only when the body was buried were the clocks restarted. I wonder how they got to the funeral on time.
- [15:11]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
Oh, and a bird crashing into a window. You're gonna die if you spilled salt. This was considered bad luck in general, but also that you were gonna die
- [15:21]
Genevieve Manion
if you didn't take a pinch of salt and throw it over your left shoulder. Some folks still do this. There are a few theories that historians have about the origins of this particular superstition. Salt was once extremely valuable. It is the root of the word salary. Roman soldiers would be actually paid in salt salt as an allowance. In ancient and medieval Europe, it was used for food preservation. It represented purity, loyalty, and even life itself. And in folk magic practices still to this day, it is considered an absorber of energy, particularly negative energy. But it can be positively charged with ritual ashes. I use my ritual ashes to make black salt, and then I leave it in bowls around my home. I sprinkle it around my apartment building.
- [16:07]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
An old lady yelled at me for doing this recently. At first I think she thought I was maybe littering or something. But no, she knew that I was doing witchcraft and she got mad about that. I tried to explain that I'm a good witch, but she didn't care. That's fine. I didn't put a curse on her or anything.
- [16:22]
Genevieve Manion
Though, like I said, I am a good witch. Because salt was so valuable for numerous reasons, it became associated with protection against corruption and decay, including spiritual corruption and wasting. It was seen as disrespectful, ominous, or even spiritually unnatural. Safe. In Da Vinci's Last Supper painting, there's spilled salt next to Judas in Southern European culture. In his time, spilling salt was so synonymous with betrayal that there was a term to betray the salt, which meant to act against one's master or host. So da Vinci took this already existing symbolic wasting of salt, meaning betrayal, to create a foreshadowing detail of Judas betraying Jesus in his painting. So wasting or spilling salt, had an ominous meaning for a long time, even
- [17:13]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
before the Victorians, the throwing it over
- [17:15]
Genevieve Manion
the left shoulder part, that's a little murky but what I found was that this could go way back to ancient beliefs that evil spirits always lingered nearby. And the left hand, the left shoulder,
- [17:29]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
was associated with evil in European folklore. You know how even in cartoons, the devil would be depicted on one shoulder
- [17:37]
Genevieve Manion
and an angel on the other?
- [17:39]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
There's a bit of that going on here.
- [17:41]
Genevieve Manion
And since the salt itself had protective properties, if you spilt protective salt unintentionally,
- [17:47]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
meaning wasting it messing up, but then you used the positive salt intentionally to
- [17:53]
Genevieve Manion
dispel the evil that exists just behind your left shoulder, by tossing it in the eyes of the left shoulder devil,
- [17:59]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
you'd cancel out the unintentional bad luck. Sounds good to me. I've never done this, but I think
- [18:05]
Genevieve Manion
I'll start oh, a sparrow landing on
- [18:08]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
a piano meant someone in your family is gonna die.
- [18:11]
Genevieve Manion
Better keep the windows closed during sparrow season. And finally, the umbrella thing that we
- [18:17]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
still do, how we still believe that if you open an umbrella indoors, you'll have bad luck. For Victorians, it meant either you or someone in your family was gonna die. And historians trace this in a few directions.
- [18:31]
Genevieve Manion
Some trace it to an ancient association with parasols being used not only to shield from Ra in Egyptian antiquity, to shield against harmful forces. And opening one indoors was thought to
- [18:44]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
insult or disrupt spiritual protection surrounding a home. But the most likely explanation for this belief is that they were and are dangerous.
- [18:55]
Genevieve Manion
Umbrellas had and have stiff metal spokes
- [18:59]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
and spring mechanisms that could easily injure someone in enclosed spaces. And perhaps stories of one or a
- [19:06]
Genevieve Manion
few dangerous indoor umbrella mishaps. A supernatural explanation as Victorians were wont
- [19:13]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
to apply to most things.
- [19:15]
Genevieve Manion
So those were just a few of my favorite Victorian death related superstitions.
- [19:21]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart choice. Make another smart choice with Auto Quote Explorer to compare rates for multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance and affiliates not available in all states and situations. Prices may vary on how you buy.
- [19:41]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
I often speak about the gruesome, inhuman,
- [19:45]
Genevieve Manion
morbid as hell aspects of 19th century surgical study. The body snatchers that sold surgeons cadavers. The laws that were passed to attempt to stop the surgeons from procuring bodies illegally.
- [19:58]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
I read a fabulous article from the
- [20:01]
Genevieve Manion
Illustrated Police news in episode 15 called among the Dead. How bodies are gathered and preserved and
- [20:08]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
how the young sawbones operate that gave me nightmares for months. You gotta hear it.
- [20:13]
Genevieve Manion
It is marvelous. But I don't often talk about how
- [20:17]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
all of this Horrible work in the
- [20:19]
Genevieve Manion
19th century led to some of the most groundbreaking and important medical scientific discoveries in all of human history. The flurry of experimentation, the growing accessibility to education, the hunger for medical knowledge in the 1800s that remained STEADF in the face of religious fury, not just toward the dissecting of bodies, but the dismantling of concepts related to, say, mental illness not being a spiritual matter, but a medical one, and non religious pushback.
- [20:53]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
Typhoid Mary being told, girl, just wash your damn hands.
- [20:57]
Genevieve Manion
Trust us, you won't spread your disease.
- [20:59]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
And she wasn't having it. She refused, sickened God knows how many
- [21:02]
Genevieve Manion
people, and killed numerous more after that. And I'm sure that she wasn't alone in thinking, what could washing my hands have to do with someone else getting sick? When all folks ever knew was that getting sick seemed to be a matter of the air that you breathed. The 1800s was a century of tremendous medical discovery, and we have so much to be thankful for that the young sawbones did not back down. So let's talk a little bit about what priceless knowledge that these folks gained in the Victorian era.
- [21:35]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
And then we'll discuss the single most fascinating murder case that was solved in the 1920s, thanks to a not particularly
- [21:45]
Genevieve Manion
groundbreaking medically scientific discovery made in the
- [21:48]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
1850s, a discovery that convinced a jury that a man was not guilty of murder, who he himself believed he was guilty of committing. I know I sound like a huge dork, but I consider the medical examiner in this case to have been one of the baddest badasses in history.
- [22:08]
Genevieve Manion
We will get there. So first, arguably the very most important medical discovery of all happened in the 19th century, which was first surmised in the 16th century, that being germ theory, which was proven and medically applied in the 19th century.
- [22:26]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
The thing Typhoid Mary wasn't buying.
- [22:29]
Genevieve Manion
Until the 19th century, most people, most scientists believed that just about every disease came from miasma, bad air. But way back in the 1660s, ish Athanasius Kircher proposed that microscopic entities could perhaps cause illnesses. The microscope was invented in the 1590s and he was experimenting with one during the plague of 1665. He observed putrefaction decaying matter. And he saw that spoiled milk and
- [22:59]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
meat were teeming with microscopic worm like squiggly things.
- [23:04]
Genevieve Manion
And he decided to take a look at the blood of plague victims under a microscope. And he observed similar entities that he saw in decaying matter. There was a difference between their blood and the blood of people who were not sick. And he believed that those squiggly things didn't just appear or were inhaled through the air, but perhaps transferred another way. He just couldn't prove it. And his findings were largely at the time dismissed. Not until the 1860s, when Louis Pasteur debunked the theory of spontaneous generation. That being the idea that living organisms could spontaneously arise from non living matter.
- [23:43]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
In other words, maggots didn't just arise from rotting meat. Something laid eggs there that caused the blech. You get what I'm saying?
- [23:50]
Genevieve Manion
He said invisible microbes were the cause of both food spoilage and infectious diseases. Once he discovered that microorganisms didn't just appear out of nowhere, he realized they could be controlled, even manipulated. He decided to put his theory to the test first, not with milk, but with something far more wine. He discovered that specific types of bacteria produced lactic acid, which caused wine to become sour. So he tried to figure out a way to kill the bacteria without changing the flavor of the wine. And he discovered that heating the wine to 122 degrees for a very short amount of time killed the bacteria, but didn't change the flavor of the wine and prevented it from becoming sour.
- [24:32]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
Once they got the most important wine discovered discovery out of the way, the
- [24:36]
Genevieve Manion
science was applied to milk, which didn't just prevent people from getting sick from the same bacteria that can make you sick if you drink raw milk today. Salmonella, monocytogenes, Listeria and E. Coli. But in the 1800s, cows carried M. Bovis, a bacteria that caused bovine tuberculosis, which caused tuberculosis in humans. Cow tuberculosis is 99% the same as human tuberculosis and can easily be transferred to humans through milk.
- [25:05]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
They can still carry this bacteria, by the way.
- [25:08]
Genevieve Manion
Pasteurization drastically reduced the spread of tuberculosis. But this discovery didn't just make wine
- [25:15]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
less sour and milk drinkable.
- [25:17]
Genevieve Manion
It was applied to sanitation in a broad sense. Surgery.
- [25:20]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
Sterilizing surgical instruments, washing hands before shoving them into open wounds.
- [25:26]
Genevieve Manion
Epidemiology. Louis Pasteur's discovery is again arguably the single most important medical breakthrough in history. Other extraordinary medical discoveries of the 1800s. Anesthesia, antiseptics and effective painkillers. Ether and chloroform. Carbolic acid as an antiseptic and morphine for pain. Anesthesia changed surgery science forever. Procedures that could never have been performed because they took time and a patient
- [25:56]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
would go into shock if they were
- [25:57]
Genevieve Manion
conscious for more than five minutes could now be performed. Granted, these were imperfect, hard to dose
- [26:04]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
properly, and could cause other health related issues as well.
- [26:07]
Genevieve Manion
But ether and Chloroform were game changers. Antiseptics enabled certain kinds of surgeries that could never have been performed at all to be performed. Abdominal surgery was not even possible until the use of antiseptics. Opening the abdomen was considered a death sentence without them. In the 1800s, for the first time, appendectomies, ovarian tumor removals, C sections were performed successfully without killing the patients.
- [26:36]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
So that's nice.
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Genevieve Manion
Morphine was known as God's own medicine during the Civil War by soldiers getting their limbs amputated.
- [26:44]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
Oh, quick random debunking of a common myth.
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Genevieve Manion
You know Southern Comfort, the peach flavored whiskey liqueur. There's a common myth that on a Civil War battlefield they had run out of morphine and a well loved colonel needed an amputation.
- [26:59]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
When they ran out of morphine, booze
- [27:01]
Genevieve Manion
was the next best thing. But he didn't like the taste of alcohol, so his soldiers added Georgia peach juice to the whiskey to make it go down smoother. And that's why they call it Southern Comfort.
- [27:13]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
This is not true. It was created by an Irish immigrant
- [27:17]
Genevieve Manion
bartender named Martin Wilkes Herron in New Orleans in 1874. It was originally called Cuffs and Buttons, but he changed the name to evoke the warm, welcoming feeling of his New Orleans saloon. He created the spice and peach infused liqueur because his customers were more refined or believed themselves to be and wanted a more distinctive alternative to harsh, unrefined whiskey. Just a fun fact. And the X ray was invented by Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen in 1895. Doctors could now finally locate bullets, identify fractures, see foreign objects inside the box body, and diagnose injuries without having to cut into people first to see inside. I've also discussed how spiritualists believed that X rays showed them the spirit inside the body. Dr. Rontgen was a spiritualist himself and he believed that his X ray technology confirmed that the visible world was simply a veil. And the X ray photos showed the animated spirit within. Mediums would have themselves X ray photographed
- [28:22]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
and would bring them to their own
- [28:23]
Genevieve Manion
seances to show as proof that we are not seeing, seeing all with our own eyes.
- [28:28]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
Doctors, however, were more interested in using the technology to discover if your kid
- [28:33]
Genevieve Manion
was really sick or did they just swallow something that they shouldn't have.
- [28:37]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
Quick side note, fun fact about I was written up in the New England Journal of medicine in the 80s as a mysteriously miraculously cured child. When I was a kid, I loved chomping down on bouncy balls and I distinctly remember chomping on My sister's bouncy ball. Like the ones you got in those things that you put a nickel in and you turn the thing and it falls. I was chomping and it shot directly down my gullet. I didn't choke. I was like, um, I'm just gonna pretend that that didn't happen. And hopefully nothing terrible or traumatic happens. I didn't want to get in trouble, so I didn't say anything. It was my sister's bouncy ball.
- [29:13]
Genevieve Manion
She would have killed me.
- [29:14]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
But I had an MRI for something unrelated the very next day. And little did I know, they found something that they weren't looking for.
- [29:25]
Genevieve Manion
It looked like I had a tumor
- [29:27]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
inside of of me. Now, my parents didn't tell me what they found. They didn't want to scare me.
- [29:33]
Genevieve Manion
Meanwhile, they were having, like, heart attacks.
- [29:36]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
I was scheduled on Christmas Day to
- [29:38]
Genevieve Manion
have surgery to have it biopsied or removed. I don't remember. I was like five.
- [29:42]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
They put me to sleep, and then
- [29:44]
Genevieve Manion
I woke up in the hospital room, and nothing that they explained would happen happened.
- [29:49]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
It was only years later that my
- [29:51]
Genevieve Manion
mom told me that before the surgery, they decided to do one more X
- [29:57]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
ray to see exactly where this mass was, but it had disappeared. They couldn't find it anywhere. I was probably about 12 when my mom told me this, and I still had a fresh memory of that bouncy ball situation and how soon before I went to the hospital that had happened.
- [30:14]
Genevieve Manion
Long story short, when I told her
- [30:16]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
that it was probably just a bouncy
- [30:18]
Genevieve Manion
ball, she burst into tears.
- [30:20]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
I mean, maybe I'm wrong. Surely they would have been able to tell the difference between a plastic bouncy ball and a cancerous tube tumor, right? Maybe.
- [30:27]
Genevieve Manion
All that aside, the X ray changed medical science forever.
- [30:31]
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- [30:51]
Ebglis Medication Informational Speaker
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- [31:24]
Ebglis Medication Advertiser
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- [31:32]
Genevieve Manion
Now certainly there were many more revolutionary medical discoveries in the 1800s, but I want to discuss how a not terribly revolutionary scientific discovery made in 1857 helped to prevent a man from being executed in the 1920s.
- [31:49]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
I don't want to want to give anything away, so I'm going to leapfrog a bit. We'll discuss the case and then the medical discovery made in the 1850s that
- [31:57]
Genevieve Manion
blew the doors off of this case. The story begins in the neighborhood of Copple Hill, Brooklyn. A beautiful tree lined brownstone neighborhood with tasty little brunch spots, lovely cocktail bars. It's precious, but In December of 1926, it wasn't quite as lovely as it is just now. A few police officers were strolling along the east river wharf late at night and saw a man wobbling toward a
- [32:24]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
dark part of the river, stumbling and
- [32:27]
Genevieve Manion
carrying something that looked awkward and very heavy. They decided to follow the guy and see what he was up to. He dropped his heavy bundle beside the river and started to walk off.
- [32:38]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
So they called out to him, what
- [32:40]
Genevieve Manion
did you just plop down by the side of the river, sir? And as soon as he saw them, he kicked the bundle into the water and ran off. They quickly real they happened upon some nefarious doings. So one of the cops shot his
- [32:53]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
gun in the air three times, which I suppose was something that cops did in the 1920s to get other cops attention. It worked and this man ran smack into another cop who came running over
- [33:04]
Genevieve Manion
to see what nefarious doings were being done. The cop tackled this guy to the ground, the other police caught up to him while one stayed back at the
- [33:13]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
river to find out what no doubt horrifying situation was wrapped up in that
- [33:17]
Genevieve Manion
bundle that got kicked into the river. Questioned him there and asked what the big idea was, but the man said nothing.
- [33:25]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
As luck would have it, a man in a black taxi pulled up and was like, hey, Frank, what's with all the cops questioning you? He was this man's neighbor. And he told the cops everything that they wanted to know about the guy. He must not have been the best neighbor.
- [33:42]
Genevieve Manion
The man's name was Francesco Trivia. He was a longshoreman who lived on Second street in Brooklyn.
- [33:48]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
And he wasn't looking so good.
- [33:49]
Genevieve Manion
He was very pale, almost green. But his cheeks were brightly flushed. The unlucky cop who stayed behind to inspect the parcel fished it out of the water. And inside found the dismembered corpse of a woman. They took Francesco to Hamilton Street Station, and he still wouldn't answer any of their questions. Detectives noticed that the man's pants appeared to be stained with dark, dark blood. They told him to remove his shoes, and they found they were filled with blood.
- [34:19]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
Thanks to that nosy neighbor who snitched
- [34:21]
Genevieve Manion
on Francesco, they knew exactly where he lived. So they put him on ice in a cell and made their way to his apartment. They opened the door, and what they found inside was simply horrifying. And if you would follow me down this quiet Brooklyn street. I want to show you you something.
- [34:40]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
It's really late.
- [34:42]
Genevieve Manion
I'd say 3am it is a chilly December night, 1926. Even though it is the 1920s, it still looks like we're in the 1800s. Despite the few parked cars. This neighborhood was developed as America's first suburb in 1814. Following the introduction of a mechanized ferry service from Manhattan in that year. Beautiful Victorian brownstones in federal style homes popped up like mushrooms between the 1820s and the Civil War. And many of them still exist today. Entire streets with beautifully maintained brownstones are a hallmark of this neighborhood. During COVID folks used to sit with
- [35:20]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
their pods, you know, their familiars on
- [35:22]
Genevieve Manion
these beautiful stoops, drinking wine, smoking cigarettes, waving to neighbors that they couldn't quite get close to. It was a lovely way to stay close, but not too close.
- [35:32]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
That's what we're gonna do, get close,
- [35:34]
Genevieve Manion
but not too close. We're going to scoot around the side of this corner building on Sackett Street. Mr. Travilla lives in this basement apartment. And if you nestle with me down here next to the garbage cans, we will have a very clear view of what's inside. As soon as the police, who have just arrived, turn on his apartment light. Here, you want some gum? I'm gonna have some gum.
- [36:00]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
I was going to make us a drink, but I didn't want to risk either of us spitting it out the second they turn on that Light and blowing our cover. Okay, brace yourself.
- [36:08]
Genevieve Manion
This won't be pretty. Oh, my God.
- [36:11]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
See what I mean?
- [36:12]
Genevieve Manion
They just flipped on the light, and as you can see, poor Mrs. Anna Frederickson's upper torso and head is on the kitchen floor covered in blood.
- [36:23]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
It is everywhere. Guts everywhere.
- [36:26]
Genevieve Manion
Jesus. A detective just showed himself out. I get it, though. I spy a butcher's knife and chisel on the table covered in blood. Things are not looking good for Mr. Travia. I'd say one would probably call this as open and shut a case as one could open and shut.
- [36:45]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
But wait for it.
- [36:47]
Genevieve Manion
All right. The city medical examiner, Mr. Charles Norris, just showed up. He's taking a look around.
- [36:55]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
Okay. You can't hear them, but I know what he's now telling all of the police.
- [36:59]
Genevieve Manion
He just said, boys, you can't arrest
- [37:02]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
this man for murder.
- [37:03]
Genevieve Manion
And now they're getting into a fight. Understandably.
- [37:06]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
Here, let's get out of here. And in a little bit, I'll explain
- [37:08]
Genevieve Manion
what Mr. Norris saw the second he walked into the room that led him to.
- [37:13]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
To make that bold assessment. Incidentally, the cops absolutely arrested Trevia as
- [37:19]
Genevieve Manion
soon as they got back to the station. They arrested him on dismemberment and illegally disposing of Abati charges.
- [37:26]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
They knew that those were slam dunks for certain.
- [37:28]
Genevieve Manion
But the medical examiner had some more work to do to confirm a fascinating. This man did not kill that woman Anna's body. And the pieces they found were taken to Bellevue morgue. Her husband and daughter were called Alice and for Frederick. Oh, those poor people. They came and identified her body. Once they somehow pulled themselves together, they explained to the police that they knew the man suspected of murder. They said he was a loner and a drinker and a friend of their mother's. He said he was never violent and was actually quite friendly. He just kept to himself. They never imagined that he could do something like this. The medical examiner had sent Anna's blood to a toxicologist to determine if his hypothesis was correct. And it was. Her blood was saturated with carboxyhemoglobin.
- [38:22]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
In other words, carbon monoxide.
- [38:24]
Genevieve Manion
Corpses don't absorb carbon monoxide, and the amount in her blood was positively lethal. The toxicologist confirmed what Dr. Norris saw with his own eyes. Her bright red blood proved that she died of carbon monoxide poisoning and would have been dead before Travia even picked up the knife. Trevia was indeed a loner and an alcoholic, which was tricky in the age of prohibition. He'd come to New York 22 years earlier after the death of his wife in Italy. When he could get his hands on some bootleg whiskey, he preferred to drink alone. He didn't really like to share, but enjoyed Anna's company. She too was a heavy drinker, her husband admitted. Trevilla told police that Anna came by to see if he had picked up any whiskey lately.
- [39:13]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
And he begrudgingly finally said, alright, come on in.
- [39:16]
Genevieve Manion
They finished the whole thing and then got into an argument. When he asked her to leave, he was tired and wanted to pass out. But she didn't want to get up. She was feeling terribly tired herself. So after a sleepy, drunken argument, his last memory was that they both fell asleep at the table. Trevia woke up sometime later and found Anna on the floor. He tried to shake her awake, but she wouldn't wake up. He realized she was stiff, her skin was cold and her lips. Lips were blue. She was dead. He thought that he must have killed her before passing out. After all, he was incredibly drunk. He was really dizzy and barely able to stay awake. He was scared that he blacked out and maybe strangled her to death. He panicked and decided he'd try to dispose of her body. And being not of soundest mind, he thought it would be best to dismember her on his kitchen floor and dispose of her in the river. In two trips, he was caught on his first round. The cops believed Trevia, but not entirely.
- [40:18]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
They didn't trust his details.
- [40:20]
Genevieve Manion
They thought that he straight up fought with her and killed her and knew exactly what he had done. They weren't buying the blackout confession.
- [40:27]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
And they also weren't buying the medical examiner's theory either.
- [40:31]
Genevieve Manion
They wanted to toss this man in the electric chair and throw the switch. So they didn't do any further forensic investigating in the apartment after Anna's body was removed and the blood cleaned. Cleaned up. But during the trial, the man who owned the building where Treville lived went into the apartment and discovered a coffee pot on the stove that had boiled over. This would have put out the flame, allowing gas to fill the apartment. The toxicologist testified that it was carbon monoxide that killed her. And the medical examiner further testified that he found no signs of a struggle, just cherry red blood all over the kitchen. And that brings us to the medical Discovery found in 1857 by German physician Felix Hop Sailor and a French physiologist named Claude Bernard. They documented that carbon monoxide poisoning resulted
- [41:23]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
in turning the blood of a poisoning
- [41:25]
Genevieve Manion
victim bright cherry red. They discovered that when carbon monoxide binds to hemoglobin in the blood, it creates carboxyhemoglobin, which is positively full of hemoglobins.
- [41:40]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
I just made that part up. I just did about 30 takes, by the way, just to get all of that pronounced correctly, and I'm not even sure if I did.
- [41:47]
Genevieve Manion
This molecular bond prevents the blood from properly releasing oxygen to the body's tissues, while also giving the blood and associated tissues a remarkably bright cherry red hue. This also explained why even though Treville
- [42:01]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
looked terribly sick, pale and a little
- [42:04]
Genevieve Manion
bit green, when he was first found trying to dispose of the body, his cheeks were bright cherry red. So he was found not guilty for murder.
- [42:13]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
He was found guilty for trying to dismember her and dispose of her body.
- [42:16]
Genevieve Manion
Though it's interesting to imagine. If he didn't dismember her, would a medical examiner come to the conclusion that she died of anything other than murder? Would they have even known to give her a carbon monoxide poisoning test? Or would they have just assumed that she was strangled or knocked out? Out and didn't bruise? You need to know to test for carbon monoxide, to test for it. It wasn't and still isn't a standard autopsy panel. It makes me wonder, if he didn't dismember her, would he have gone to the electric chair after all? If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please rate the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Leave me comments because I love the them so much. And for ad free listening, true crime extras, dark poetry and witchy content. Join the patreon@myvictorian nightmare.com Be kind to yourselves and I will see you in your nightmares.
- [43:21]
Carvana Advertiser
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- [43:43]
Genevieve Manion
So good you'll want to leave a voicemail about it. Sell your car today on Carvana.
- [43:49]
Co-host or Guest (possibly Toby's owner or a secondary narrator)
Pickup fees may apply.
- [43:50]
Ryan Reynolds (Mint Mobile Advertiser)
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- [44:07]
Genevieve Manion
Switch upfront payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees, extra fee terms@mintmobile.com.