bourbonic pleasure

Sophie Dawes started out in life as the daughter of a smuggler and fisherman. Along the way she was mistress to a royal prince, wife to a wealthy Baron and a suspected murderess.

She became the mistress of the duc de Bourbon, afterwards Prince of Condé.

To prevent scandal and to qualify her to be received at court, the Prince had her married to Adrien Victor de Feuchères. He also provided her dowry and made her husband a baron.

Condé was induced in 1829 to sign a will bequeathing about ten million francs to her, and the rest of his estate – more than sixty-six millions – to the duc d’Aumale, fourth son of Louis Philippe.

When he was found hanging dead from his window curtain rod, the baroness was suspected and an inquiry was held. There were rumours that the new King of the French, Louis-Philippe, had collaborated with Sophie in the crime. Later, rumours circulated amongst the nobility that Condé had died pleasuring himself, engaged in what would later be known as autoerotic asphyxiation.

There’s a wax model of Sophie Dawes at the Brading Wax Museum on the Isle of Wight. It also features this Victorian maid who seems to be exhibiting birch stripes across her bottom…..

….. as well as the best dressed kitten I’ve seen in a long time

All images of the Brading Museum came from marthasadie’s flickr site

more strange rectal tales

We’ve previously posted stories about the strange things people insert in their anuses but it seems there’s a never ending trove of these tales. Our old friends Gould and Pyle describe some results of “self medicating”

In his memoirs of the old Academy of Surgery in Paris, Morand speaks of a monk who, to cure a violent colic, introduced into his fundament a bottle of l’eau de la reine de Hongrie, with a small opening in its mouth, by which the contents, drop by drop, could enter the intestine. He found he could not remove the bottle, and violent inflammation ensued. It was at last necessary to secure a boy with a small hand to extract the bottle.

Studsgaard mentions that in the pathologic collection at Copenhagen there is a long, smooth stone, 17 cm. long, weighing 900 gm., which a peasant had introduced into his rectum to relieve prolapsus. The stone was extracted in 1756 by a surgeon named Frantz Dyhr. Jeffreys speaks of a person who, to stop diarrhea, introduced into his rectum a piece of wood measuring seven inches.

Hunter mentions a native Indian, a resident of Coorla, who had introduced a bullock’s horn high up into his abdomen, which neither he nor his friends could extract.

In Nelson’s Northern Lancet, 1852, there is the record of a case of a man at stool, who slipped on a cow’s horn, which entered the rectum and lodged beyond the sphincter. It was only removed with great difficulty.

Studsgaard mentions a man of thirty-five who, for the purpose of stopping diarrhea, introduced into his rectum a preserve-bottle nearly seven inches long with the open end uppermost.

“Preserves” found at Modern Mechanix

corset friday 16/10/2009

My new photographer Miss Spinach Pie worked overtime to whip up a big batch of Corset Friday shots. I’ll save some of them for next week but here’s one of nursemyra channelling  Tempest Storm

image found here

The photo was taken last weekend, I looked for an old time star in a similar corset/pose later. If readers have ideas for future “channelling shots”, leave your suggestions in the comments box so Spinach Pie and I can get inspired too……

the fish that got away

Back to our old friends Gould and Pyle to see what they have to say about the dangers of fishing and drinking water

Stewart described the case of a native “Puckally” of Ceylon who was the victim of the most distressing symptoms from the impaction of a living fish in his throat. The native had caught the fish, and in order to extract it placed its head between his teeth, holding the body with the left hand and the hook with the right. He had hardly extracted the hook, when the fish pricked his palm with his long and sharp dorsal fin, causing him suddenly to release his grasp on the fish and voluntarily open his mouth at the same time.

The fish quickly bolted into his mouth, and, although he grasped the tail with his right hand, and squeezed his pharynx with his left, besides coughing violently, the fish found its way into the esophagus. Further attempts at extraction were dangerous and quite likely to fail; his symptoms were distressing, he could not hold his head erect without the most agonizing pain and he was almost prostrated from fright and asphyxia; it was thought advisable to push the fish into the stomach, and after an impaction of sixteen hours the symptoms were relieved.

Granger, a surgeon in Her Majesty’s Indian Service, writes:–“Several days ago I received a note asking me if I would see a man who had a leech in his throat which he was unable to get rid of.

On account of the symptoms complained of by the patient I introduced a forceps into the lower part of the pharynx and toward the esophagus, where a body, distinctly moving, was felt. This body I seized with the forceps, and with considerable force managed to remove it. It was a leech between 2 1/2 and three inches in length, and with a body of the size of a Lee-Metford bullet. No doubt during the eleven days it had remained in the man’s throat the leech had increased in size.

Nevertheless it must have been an animal of considerable size when the man attempted to swallow it. I send this case as a typical example of the carelessness of natives of the class from which we enlist our Sepoys

and yes I have posted about fish getting caught in other orifices before

the right to dip into

In 17th century France, the State Executioner was entitled to “droit de havage” or “the right to dip into”.

Toy guillotine found here

Among his many privileges were the right of an egg from any egg vendor and a full spoonful of green peas, walnuts, dried fruit or hazelnuts from anyone who sold these items. Sellers of butter, cheese, chicken or fish must pay him six deniers and a carp, the fruiterer gives a sous worth of oranges and lemons from every crate.

For every wagon of oysters in the shell, he gets a quarter, from broom sellers, one free broom, a scuttle full of coal from the coal merchant, free execution ropes from the rope merchant and exemption from all road tolls.” *

Napoleonic bone model guillotine found here

In England the preferred method of execution was hanging. This did not always go according to plan, as in the case of Anne Green.

“She was turned off the ladder, hanging by the neck for half an hour. The body was carried in a coffin to a private house where it began to show signs of life. Dr Petty and another set themselves to recover her. They bled her freely and put her into bed with another woman. After about 2 hours she could speak intelligently and 5 days later she was up. Within a month she had recovered and went to her friends in the country, taking her coffin with her….”

The Sleepers by Gustave Courbet

*Extract from Execution: A Guide to the Ultimate Penalty by Geoffrey Abbott

a robust fustigation

According to London: The Wicked City by Fergus Linnane, there were brothels in 19th century England designed specifically for the gratification of women. Mary Wilson hosted an “Eleusinian Institution” divided into two sections, one for married women and their lovers, the other for women seeking sex.

Ann-Margaret (especially for UB)

Before making their choice, the women viewed the men through a window. When they saw one they fancied they would ring for a chambermaid and point him out. The woman could then “enjoy him in the dark, or have a light and keep on her mask. she can stay an hour or a night, and have one or two dozen men as she pleases, without being known to any of them….”

Mrs Wilson also specialised in flagellation. This interesting woman, who translated and published European erotic novels, wrote extensively about men’s addiction to flagellation, and classified the different types drawn to it:

those who like to receive a fustigation from the hands of a robust woman who wields the rod with vigour and effect

those who desire to administer birch discipline on the white and plump buttocks of a female

and those who derive excitement from being spectators of the sport

Which one are you?

heady business

Stanley Lovell worked in the Office of Strategic Services during the Second World War

“Another device we made for intelligence agents originated when a spy told me he was nearly trapped in the Adlon Hotel in Berlin.

“I would have given anything'” he said, “if I could have created a panic in that lobby.”

My answer to the spy’s suggestion was “Hedy.” Hedy was a simple firecracker device which, when you pulled a small wire loop, simulated the screeching Doppler effect of a falling Nazi bomb and then ended in a deafening roar but all completely harmless. By activating Hedy the agent could have a chance to escape in the turmoil he had created. It was named after Hedy Lamarr, because my lusty young officers said she created panic wherever she went.

Equally simple was the explosive candle. Pretend you know a French girl who has access to a German officer’s study or bedroom. Give her your candle to replace the half-consumed one already there. It will burn perfectly until the flame touches the high explosive composing the lower two-thirds of the candle. Since the wick extends into a detonator and the latter is embedded in the explosive, the burst is as effective as any hand grenade.

Women’s accessories offered a wide source of concealment. It is easy to melt a lipstick, pour the molten wax around the message tube and recast it in its original shape. All containers for the female form divine become themselves available as concealment areas. Steels in corsets and foundation garments can be deadly stilettos provided they don’t work loose and stab the operator in a critical area. We are, as it happens, considering a still sensitive area of activity in camouflage, so the reader’s imagination will have to supply the devices omitted from this recitation.

My favorite attack on Adolf Hitler was a glandular approach. America’s top diagnosticians and gland experts agreed with me that he was definitely close to the male-female line. His poor emotional control, his violent passions, his selection of companions like Roehm, all led me to feel that a push to the female side might do wonders. The hope was that his moustache would fall off and his voice become soprano.

Hitler was a vegetarian. At Berchtesgaden, the vegetable garden that supplied his melodramatic Eagle’s Nest on the rocky peak had to have gardeners. A plan to get an O.S.S. man there, or an anti-Nazi workman, was approved. I supplied female sex hormones and, just for variety’s sake, now and then a carbamate or other quietus medication, all to be injected into der Fiihrer’s carrots, beets or whatever went up to his larder.

Since he survived, I can only assume that the gardener took our money and threw the syringes and medications into the nearest thicket. Either that or Hitler had a big turnover in his “tasters”

the smell of a 35 year old man

Gould and Pyle are reporting on smells today

Preismann in 1877 makes the statement that for 6 hours after coitus there is a peculiar odour noticeable in the breath, owing to a peculiar secretion of the buccal glands. He says that this odour is most perceptible in men of about 35, and can be discerned at a distance of  6 feet. He also adds that this fact would be of great medicolegal value in the early arrest of those charged with rape. The same article states that after coitus naturally foul breath becomes sweet.

Fey Rey by Keith Boadwee found here

Pare states that persons of red hair and freckled complexion have a noxious exhalation; the odor of prussic acid is said to come from dark individuals, while blondes exhale a secretion resembling musk.

Sharon Tate

Fevre says the odor of the sweat of lunatics resembles that of yellow deer or mice, and Knight remarks that the absence of this symptom would enable him to tell whether insanity was feigned or not.

image found here

Hammond refers to three cases under his notice in which specific odors were the results of affections of the nervous system. One of these cases was a young woman of hysterical tendencies who exhaled the odor of violets. This odor was given off the left half of the chest only and could be obtained concentrated by collecting the perspiration on a handkerchief, heating it with four ounces of spirit, and distilling the remaining mixture. The administration of the salicylate of soda modified in degree this violaceous odor. Hammond also speaks of a young lady subject to chorea whose insensible perspiration had an odor of pineapples; in this connection he mentions a most unfortunate young woman who, when suffering from intense sick headache, exhaled an odor resembling that of Limburger cheese.

corset friday 9.10.2009

For a bit of variety I’m posting a photograph of Anita Ekberg today too. Like me, she knows and appreciates the hydraulics of a good corset 🙂

Letter to The Times part 3

Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland was a great society beauty, playwright and social reformer who was painted by Sargent. She also worked as a Red Cross nurse during the first World War.

Later she amused herself by writing letters to the Times

“Sir,

Why in heaven’s name are our police forbidden to chew gum? The steadying effect on the nerves and the greater efficiency provoked by chewing gum is a question of public knowledge.

I have proved this on long motor runs and exhausting journeys. I encourage my chauffeur to chew gum: he is always fresher at the end of a long excursion than if he smoked cigarettes.

This perpetual interference in England in minor details with the liberty of the subject, whether he be prince or policeman, seems absurd. Please give the metropolitan policeman back his gum and merely ask him to be careful where he emits it.”

July 3, 1928

Millicent wasn’t the only one in favour of chewing gum. The Japanese don’t just like its steadying effect, they appreciate its effect on men’s blood flow and women’s breast tone

“Suplitol Tongkat Ali Gum is superbly compounded from herbs, arginine, minerals, zinc, and magnesium which are all involved in the formation of male hormones.  This is a gum produced for men who wish to remain young, strong, and virile for a lifetime.  Increase your testosterone naturally and get back that sexual performance you had when you were younger.

A chewing gum which contains extracts from the Pueraria mirifica (Kwao Krua) plant, makes a woman’s breasts grow as well as improving their shape and tone, says B2UP, the makers of its Bust-Up gum.

Though neither of these products is quite so inventive as Frank Nemirofsky’s 1978 patent for a bubble gum dispensing t shirt

“Be a big hit with all your friends and make a fortune in the process. This simple device protrudes discretely from your t-shirt and can dispense chewing gum, cigarettes or even condoms. A slit at the top of the device is provided to collect coins in payment for the goods. The inventor sees it as a way fostering the entrepreneurial spirit in youngsters”

Lady Millicent would be proud