I remember someone posted an article once about how during victorian times i think the tuberculosis “look” became the new beauty ideal for women, like unhealthily skinny, pale skin, glowing (with sweat due to fever), rosy cheeks, etc and i for real think about that almost every day because its like. We never had a chance lmao
DUDE I DID A WHOLE PAPER ON THIS. It was a huge Romantic fad for both men and women. It was considered specifically the poet’s disease (the umbrella “artist’s disease” was syphilis, so many composers had it holy shit, it was probs why Beethoven went deaf) and women and poets were seen as especially susceptible because of their sensitivity specifically, not necessarily miasma. It got to the point of popularity where a good poet and handsome man were both consumptive that none other than Lord Byron once wrote to a friend that he wished he had it cause then he would get all the ladies. Alexandre Dumas wrote about the same thing when he was remembering his youth in Paris. This wasn’t just England, it was all over Western Europe. (Also fun to look at: the treatments and prescriptions given by doctors to cure tb, I ended up banging my head against the wall when I was researching it)
Create a mess 