Let's Venture Back Into Victorian Times Once Again

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I find the Victorian Era (1837 - 1901) a fascinating time in history. It was a time of change, innovation, and heavy on the strange social values and rules. There were some strange fetishes and odd fancies. The idle rich became obsessed with a lot of weird subjects mostly because they had too much time on their hands. Here are just a few: Egyptology was a popular subject, and mummies were even ground up to make paint. They were even on display in candy shops while jars of mummy parts were even found in pharmacies. Corpse Medicine was at its height in the 16th and 17th centuries and continued into the Victorian Era. This was the belief that certain parts of the body could be a miracle cure for whatever ailed them. Recipe books that explain how to prepare them. Medical texts specified which muscles or parts were good for which ailments. There are even records of human fat being used to make candles during this time. Families would pose with their newly departed loved ones since bodies were kept in the home during the mourning period. Portraits were staged not just of the deceased but of the entire family as if all were still alive. Hat fashions were very popular. Women wore plumes of feathers on their heads and sometimes even entire birds. Taxidermy was used to prepare them and then they were put on the hats. The demand was so excessive for birds that as many as 67 species of birds were threatened with extinction.