Hold Still

this one. And if you are a loved one is struggling with an eating disorder, please contact the National Eating Disorder Association by texting n e DA to seven four one seven four one. In century, thin was all the rage. In fact, the more sick you looked, the better. Beauty trends during the Victorian era involved a pale complexion of tiny wiste and a frail body. If you're thinking that this sounds more like a hospital patient than a model,

well you'd actually be right. These beauty standards were based on the appearance of people with tuberculosis. Yes, you heard that right, tuberculosis. In the late eighteenth century, consumption as it was known had become completely intertwined with feminine beauty. Thinness was already considered a desirable trait for women to have, and of course the very thinnest women were the ones who were dying. Looking like you were wasted away was

en vogue. You got bonus points if you could emulate some of the other physical signs of the disease as well. You see, while frailty was the main draw, TB also gave it sufferers sparkling eyes and a pretty blush across their cheeks and lips, both of which were actually the result of a low grade fever. While it may not sound appealing to us today, this tuberculosis chic was all the rage, and its grip on society lasted for over

one hundred years. Of course, looking like you're dying when you're knots is actually pretty hard to do, and losing enough weight to fit into this ideal was very, very difficult, So some people got creative diet pills and potions started to gain popularity in the nineteenth century. A lot of them, though, were more likely to kill you than help you whittle away your waist.

and would take up residents inside the body. The idea was that you could eat as much as you wanted and leave the dinner table satisfied, but since the worm was eating all of your food, you would never gain any weight. In fact, in the end you would probably lose quite a few pounds. It was a risky gamble, to be sure, because weight loss might not even have been the only result. Tapeworms can cause headaches, eye problems, epilepsy,

and early onset dementia. It's hard to imagine risking so much for the shallow promise of losing weight, but people were willing to go far to be considered beautiful. They were even willing to deal with the traumatic aftermath of the parasite leaving their system. Once the tapeworm's host decided that they had lost enough weight, they were supposed to take an anti parasite pill, which would kill off the worm.

At least that was the idea, and when the worm was dead, the host was supposed to excrete the worm in what was sure to be the worst bathroom session of their entire life. Not only would it be terrifying and painful, but it could also cause serious abdominal and rectal issues. If you didn't want to kill the worm, though, it was believed that you could always lure it out

with a cup of milk. It's a ridiculous theory that likely did not work, but if it did, then the host would still have to deal with the tapeworm's unfortunate exit strategy into the toilet. It's said that the tapeworm diet made its way to America in nineteen twelve. However, many government officials at the time were skeptical that it

was actually in the States. The Surgeon General denied having seen evidence of tapeworm pills in America, and the American Medical Association outright denied the pill's existence at all anywhere, be it in America or Europe. There is still debate among historians on whether or not the tapeworm pill was largely distributed, or if working tapeworm pills were ever distributed

at all. Some believe that they absolutely did exist. After all, the Victorians were willing to poison themselves for a thinner waste. What was a parasite compared to that? Others say that they were always a hoax, made up as satire to show how far fad diets had gone. The most accepted theory is that it was never a super popular diet fad, but that plenty of people definitely still try to take

these pills tried being the operative here. It's believed that while some of these pills worked, many others were just duds. Whether they were a scam from the beginning or the worm died before hatching, a lot of these pills never resulted in a live parasite. The important thing here, though, is that people wanted to lose weight so badly they were willing to risk their health and their lives and a very unfortunate new neighbor in their intestines to achieve

that goal. And that is the real horror of this story. Thanks to smartphones, we have a camera always ready to record at a moment's notice, whether we're documenting accident footage for our insurance company or snapping a shot of our kids Little League home run. Our phones have become like extensions of our brains, holding all of our memories for us.

But those tiny cameras have another talent shame. I'm sure we've all eagerly watched the footage of an entitled customer lashing out in a store because they didn't get what they wanted. Some people call it cancel culture, but really those videos are just documentary evidence that leads to consequences for the offending party. But the idea of publicly shaming someone is nothing new. It predates our smartphones. Heck, it

predates the Internet and television and the printing press. All we have to do is look back at Italy during the Renaissance. Now, when we think of the Italian Renaissance, we picture artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Sandro Botticelli painting and sketching the people in places around them. But these works were not just a way for painters to express themselves. Some art had a specific purpose. It was

called petura infamante, which in English meant defaming portrait. When someone was caught stealing or accused of fraud or traitorous behavior, they became the subject of special paintings hung everywhere that they could be seen. They were usually painted to publicly shame those who could not be dealt with in a

normal legal context, and those depictions were pretty tough. Often the subject, who was always a man by the way, was painted hanging upside down or present among animals such as donkeys or pigs, creatures that were deemed unclean, and below the images, captions explaining what the person had done wrong were written so that everyone walking by would know what they were guilty of. Now, to be clear, this

type of punishment wasn't for everyone. Since the poor would have nothing to lose by being defamed, they would be punished outright. Petura infamante was typically reserved for the rich, who didn't just value their wealth, but their reputations within the community as well, and the conditions in which they

were depicted also mattered. Hanging was a method of execution used primarily for the lower class, while upper class criminals had the luxury of being beheaded a quick and relatively painless death, and to be shown hanging upside down was doubly offensive, as that position was viewed as comedic and unbecoming of someone of means and status. Many of these defaming portraits were hung in the Bargello, a massive palace

first built in twelve fifty five. It's originally housed high ranking government officials before it was converted into everything from a prison, to a military barracks to an art museum. But for a time it was a popular venue for frescoes and portraits of local fraudsters, painted by the likes of both Icelli and Andrea del Castagno. After all, the men in these portraits had to be recognizable, so only

the best artists were hired to paint them. Some scholars and art historians argue that these works were not just meant to humiliate the wealthy, but also to remind others of what awaited them in the event that they broke the law. Step out of line and find your face hanging literally upside down on the walls of the Bargello. Unfortunately,

no frescoes survived to this day. The only evidence of these paintings that we have today are some preparatory sketches done in advance of the colorful portraits, some of which were drawn by Da Vinci himself. Interestingly enough, though most modern tarot decks also contain a nod to the picture Infamante of old. The card, known as the hang Demand shows an individual hanging upside down by one leg, a

common pose from many Renaissance to Faming portraits. Tarot cards were invented in northern Italy in the mid fourteen hundreds, so it's possible that the card's design was influenced by these portraits. But did petura infamante work. Were rich men discouraged from committing fraud or treason? Maybe maybe not. After all, money and power make people behave in very curious ways. But it was also probably the cheapest way to get one's portrait painted by Leonardo da Vinci. I hope you've

enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast book series and television s, and you can learn all about it over at theworldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.