Lecture 2 of "Is Health Better than Wealth"

1. GORGING AND
GOUT
Health and the Disposable Income
Waterford County Archivist
Joanne Rothwell

2. Disposable Income
Increase in cash payments
All levels of society – weekly tenancies, yearly
tenancies, terms of lease
Credit – shops supplied credit to good customers
and to “powerful” customers
Pawnbrokers – William Burke, Cappoquin was
appointed Appraiser and Auctioneer of Pawned
Goods in Pawn Offices by the Grand Jury in 1854
Tallymen – goods supplied for payment in
instalments

3. DISPOSING OF INCOME
Food – meat, new foods
Drink – alcohol
Fashion and Fads
Health

4. GORGING : 18th Century
Rev. Nicholas Herbert, Carrick-on-Suir took his family to their
seaside cottage in Bonmahon in 1793. His daugther
Dorothea and her friends celebrated with a feast
 …we set all Hands to work, got our Pastry and Music from
Carrick with every Rarity the Season afforded in Meats, Fruits or
Vegetables –The two Blundons got us all manner of fish and
wildfowl – Miss Butler, Miss Blunden and Fanny manufactured the
Whipps, Jellies and Creams and I made a Central Arch of
Pasteboard and Wild Heath with various other Ornaments and
Devices
 Aonach Bhearna na Gaoithe – Tomas Ó Moráin (Tomás na
mbodharán)c.1770 Sliabh gCua lists food of the fair (raisins,
honeycomb, chicken, meat, crubeens, leek, onions, cheese,
carrots, turnips, parsnips, hakes, crabs, herrings, shellfish,
salmon, fraughan, gooseberries, apples, gingerbread, plums
and cherries…)
 Plúr na nDeise, arán sinséir…Bradán is bric-gheala ón tSiúir ann”

5. GORGING 19TH CENTURY
First Course: Soup, Fish Dish “It is
customary to eat fish only at the commencement
of the dinner” Miss Leslie’s Directions for
Cookery, 1851. Sherry
Second Course: Joint or Roast – mutton,
goose, duck. Game pies. Champagne with
roast, Claret with mutton, beef or venison
Third Course: Pastry, Creams, Jellies
Dessert: Iced puddings, trifle, cakes, tarts.
Liqueur served after ice, madeira, sherry or
port after dessert

6. GORGING: MEAT
 Increase in meat consumption in the diet – beef and mutton
(boiled), lamb only if a lamb died
 Pig rearing was very common in Ireland – one for the table
and one for market among poorer families but more in
other families. Hand cured at home and slaughtered late
Autumn/early Winter.
 John Risbal, Dungarvan That Deft committed a nuisance by
allowing 3 pigs in his dwelling house situate in Borheenatra in the
Town of Dungarvan on Monday 4th March 1867. Nicholas
Riordan and Johanna Whelan – same complaint

7. GORGING – NEW FOODS
 Bought bread – more finely milled, alum added to make dark bread look
lighter and to weigh heavier
 Butter and Milk – water, starch, carbonate of water, sugar
 Tea and Coffee – used tea leaves were boiled with copperas (ferrous
sulphate) and sheep's dung, then coloured with prussian blue (ferric
ferrocyanide), verdigris (basic copper acetate), logwood, tannin or
carbon black, before being resold. Some varieties of cheap teas
contained or were made entirely from the dried leaves of other plants
 Tinned Food – bole armenian added to colour potted fish and meat
 1754 1st patent in England for the manufacture of gelatin, unflavoured
dried gelatin, 1842
 Corn syrup invented 1811
 Corn starch – custard Alfred Bird 1837
 Margarine – 1870
 Sweets – turkish delight (1777), boiled sweets, toffee, chocolate bar
(1847), milk chocolate (1875)liquorice allsorts (1899),

8. TEA AND SUGAR
Per capita consumption rose .5lb to 2.2lbs between
late 1830s-early 1860s and grew further as the 19th
century progressed
High quality tea was purchased
Tea was stewed and consumed with lots of sugar
and even more sugar if no milk was to be had
Surveys 1859-1904 indicate a tenfold increase in
sugar consumption
Coffee was a middle and upper class drink
Workhouses dramatically increased their tea and
sugar purchases

9. SUGAR BEET
 Sugar Cane sole source of sugar
 During the mid-1700’s, the German chemist Andreas
Margraff discovered that both white and the red beetroot
contained sucrose, which was indistinguishable from that
produced from cane
 One of Margraff’s students, Franz Karl Achard, conducted
research in this area and built the first sugar factory at
Cunern in lower Silesia (modern day Poland), and developed
effective processing methods
 Napoleonic Wars – more research due to English blockade
of West Indies
 Decline in slavery – increase in sugar beet production
 1850s – widespread sugar beet production

10. WORKHOUSE DIET
InAugust 1869 390lbs of meat was purchased with
320 inmates in the Workhouse in Dungarvan
2780lbs of bread were purchased
Oxheads, beef and mutton from local suppliers
Best 2nd Bread – all supplies put out to local tender
More eggs purchased
More Wine, Porter, Beer and Whiskey purchased
More Sugar

11. CHEAP DRINK
 Expansion in distilling industry in 18 th century – corn surplus, technological
advances
 Duty paid on gin was 2 pence a gallon, as opposed to 4 shillings and nine
pence on strong beer.
 Consequently gin was dirt cheap
 Breweries concentrated on the production of porter - became popular
from the 18th century. The dark coloured beer was favoured by the market
porters in London, hence its name.
 Watered Beer - 'bittern' sold to brewers of bitter beer in large quantities. It
contained copperas (ferrous sulphate), extracts of Cocculus indicus, quassia
and liquorice juice. There was also a preparation of ground coriander seeds,
with Nux vomica and quassia, again to impart bitterness to the brew.
 Rum and brandy were gradually displaced by whiskey in the late 18 th century
in Ireland

12. ILLEGAL DISTILLING
 Unlicensed distilling illegal from 1667
 Increase in tax on spirits – increase in illegal distilling
 Report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords
appointed to consider the consequences of extending the
functions of the constabulary in Ireland to the suppression
or prevention of illicit distillation… 1854
 Difficult “to enforce a law which was not directed against a
moral offence”
 1860 police complained about the lack of assistance from
the coast guards and the lords commissioners replied that
they believe the coast guards were “lowered in the estimation
of the country people and the service injured by employment of
their boats on the duty referred to”
 Father Mathew and Temperance Movement

13. GOUT
Form of arthritis, joint inflammation due to
uric acid in the blood
Rich food produces uric acid in abundance
and alcohol, by drying out the body,
discourages it from leaving. The best
prevention, is sensible food and lots of
water.
Lord Chesterfield “the gout is the distemper
of a gentleman; whereas the rheumatism is the
distemper of a hackney coachman.”

14. FASHION AND FADS
 Corsets –health risks (women and men)
 In 1878 Dr Gustave Jaeger argued that woollen clothing promoted
better health. He stated that wearing natural, undyed wool next to the
skin was a healthy alternative to silk or cotton as it allowed perspiration
to pass freely away, leaving the skin dry and warm. By the 1890s Jaeger
was marketing a range of woollen underwear including 'Sanitary Woollen
Corsets' for women.
 Less wealthy wore more comfortable clothes
 Smoking – pipe, snuff, cigarettes, cigars 1791: London physician John Hill
reports cases in which use of snuff caused nasal cancers.
 Ireland and Scotland were the primary exporters of pipes in the 19 th
Century

15. COSMETICS
 Lead Face Powder
several thin plates of lead
a big pot of vinegar
a bed of horse manure
water
perfume & tinting agent
Steep the lead in the pot of vinegar, and rest it in a bed of manure
for at least three weeks. When the lead finally softens to the point
where it can pounded into a flaky white powder (chemical reaction
between vinegar and lead causes lead to turn white), grind to a fine
powder. Mix with water, and let dry in the sun. After the powder
is dry, mix with the appropriate amount of perfume and tinting
dye.

16. MEDICINE AND DOCTORS
Connection between germs and disease not widely
accepted even by 1860s – doctors often spread
disease by contaminating patients with unwashed
hands and instruments
Mercury Pills were used to treat gout (also used as
a cure for syphilis)
Caryocostin (costus root, scammony, cloves)
Opium – widely used in medicines
Bloodletting – still widely practised in the 19th
century

17. CONCLUSION
More money – more consumption
The cure was often worse than the
disease
Next week – Dis-ease and Disease