WEIRD stuff from the golden era

[Story]

Never came across something like this before! 1930s ostrich wearing a throat warmer!:fing28:

He needs a coat to match.
http://craftandhobby.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/ostrich.jpg

 

[HadleyH]

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lol !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



1920s ostrich wearing a ........ mmmm... cloche hat???

 

[Argee]

Are you thinking of the 1950s "Duck and Cover" advertisements? It was supposed to protect against a nuclear blast...only...it didn't.

And I suspect that it would've been equally useless against a conventional bomb-blast.

I always assumed that was to protect those on the very edge of the blast radius. It would protect you from small shrapnel. But since you don't know who's going to end up on the edge, everybody does it.

 

[Atomic Age]

This wasn't just a Golden Era thing -- I can remember seeing those classifications in ads well into the 1980s. It was especially common for health-care job listings -- "Elderly Woman seeks female nurse/companion," things like that.

Oh of course, but I believe that large companies stopped that kind of job listings in the early 1970's.

Doug

 

[Atomic Age]

Are you thinking of the 1950s "Duck and Cover" advertisements? It was supposed to protect against a nuclear blast...only...it didn't.

And I suspect that it would've been equally useless against a conventional bomb-blast.

The "duck and cover" drills were developed because the Army discovered that more people were killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, by flying debris than from heat or radiation. In addition, there were several cases where someone standing behind a wooden fence survived unscathed, where someone 20 feet away in the open, was vaporized.

In the early "low yield" days of atomic warfare, the duck and cover strategy made a good deal of sense. But those drills didn't make it very far out of the 1950's.

Doug

 

[LaMedicine]

The "duck and cover" drills were developed because the Army discovered that more people were killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, by flying debris than from heat or radiation. In addition, there were several cases where someone standing behind a wooden fence survived unscathed, where someone 20 feet away in the open, was vaporized.

In the early "low yield" days of atomic warfare, the duck and cover strategy made a good deal of sense. But those drills didn't make it very far out of the 1950's.

Doug

Maybe survived unscathed then, but just about everyone ended up suffering from long term effects of being exposed to the large amount of immediate radiation and long term exposure to residual radiation. Don't make light of the effects, there are many who suffer still from the after effects, and every year to this day, new names are added to the roster of the nuclear bomb victims who died of various post exposure issues, at the annual memorial services held in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

 

[Joie DeVive]

In England if you're pregnant you get free dental care because of the whole loose teeth thing. I've not known any pregnant women to have taken prenatal vitamins. I hope we're not all malnourished in England.

On a normal basis, I wouldn't guess that you are malnourished, but during pregnancy, a woman's need for different elements changes dramatically. If the vitamins and minerals aren't readily available, the body will take it from itself. Here in the US, almost all pregnant women take special vitamins, and even women trying to get pregnant, or just off birth control are often strongly encouraged to take prenatal vitamins. I've never known a pregnant friend here in the US to complain of loose teeth. I was always told there was a connection, perhaps it's true?

 

[Puzzicato]

In England if you're pregnant you get free dental care because of the whole loose teeth thing. I've not known any pregnant women to have taken prenatal vitamins. I hope we're not all malnourished in England.

One of my colleagues - who did take pre-natal vitamins - is up to about 12 hours of dental treatment in the last 3 weeks because of the toll the pregnancy took on her teeth. And of course the abcesses she developed during the pregnancy couldn't be treated with antibiotics, so she was right back into the old fashioned remedy of biting on cloves!

 

[Sincerely-Dee]

My grandmother had terrible "morning sickness" all through her pregnancy lost her teeth because the enamel had worn down .

 

[scottyrocks]

My fiancee had great teeth until she became pregnant for the first time 16 years ago. Big recurring problems since then.

 

[Atomic Age]

Maybe survived unscathed then, but just about everyone ended up suffering from long term effects of being exposed to the large amount of immediate radiation and long term exposure to residual radiation. Don't make light of the effects, there are many who suffer still from the after effects, and every year to this day, new names are added to the roster of the nuclear bomb victims who died of various post exposure issues, at the annual memorial services held in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

No my intent wasn't to make light of the effect of radiation. The long term casualties of radiation and fall out were much higher than those that were killed instantly.

However from the point of view of the civil defense authorities, people could be trained to avoid the effects of radiation and fall out (hence all the instructions for how to build fall out shelters and how to prepare food. Information the civilians in Japan didn't have.) but they had to survive the blast first. So we got duck and cover drills.

Interestingly there was a man who died just recently, who survived both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki blasts. He was in Hiroshima the morning of the first attack, survived, then traveled back to his home in Nagasaki in time to survive that blast. It seems to me that he was both the luckiest and most unlucky man in the world.

He died of natural causes.

Doug

 

[Chas]

There were a lot of unnecessary surgeries back in the day - at one point I think they were taking out kids' appendixes, adenoids and tonsils "just in case".

I guess it doesn't rate as bizarre for the era (made sense to them, I guess), but...spraying people with DDT.

 

[Shangas]

Talking about weird and unnecessary medical treatments from history...how about this horror from the Golden Era?

Three guesses! Who can figure out what these were used for? For some of the older members here, maybe you won't have to guess...

 

[Chas]

Lobotomy instruments?

 

[Shangas]

Yep. They're ice-pick lobotomy ice-picks.

 

[Chas]

My mum worked as a student nurse in a psychiatric hospital in the 1940's. All they had then to treat the various disorders were lobotomies, locking people up, insulin shock therapy- giving people overdoses of insulin which put them in a coma, then a stupor for several days; hydrotherapy (warm baths) and electro-convulsive therapy.

The first generation antipsychotic drugs were still some years away; the phenothiazines, like Chlorpromazine (discovered in France in the mid '50s) were developed by a surgeon who was searching for drugs to allay preoperative anxiety.

Back to topic - weird= those dog movies i.e. "Dogway Melody".

 

[LizzieMaine]

Back to topic - weird= those dog movies i.e. "Dogway Melody".

A lot of people at the time thought those were creepy. I'd also add the "Baby Burlesks" comedies -- shorts where toddlers were dressed up in bizarre costumes and put thru parodies of grownup movie stories. A toddler swaying around dressed like Mae West with a dubbed voice murmuring double-entendres is just -- ick.

 

[TrenchGuy]

-- Truckin'. (Not to be confused with truck driving. Look it up if necessary.)

I googled it, but couldn't find anything except the "Keep on Truckin''" comic by Robert Crumb...

 

[Chas]

I thought that that was a dance, and a song title. You sort of skip in place and waggle your R index finger.

 

[Chas]

A lot of people at the time thought those were creepy. I'd also add the "Baby Burlesks" comedies -- shorts where toddlers were dressed up in bizarre costumes and put thru parodies of grownup movie stories. A toddler swaying around dressed like Mae West with a dubbed voice murmuring double-entendres is just -- ick.

I youtubed that- I could handle about 30 sec's of "War Babies" with Shirley Temple. Sort of like those kiddie beauty pageants. Just plain wrong.

Of course, there's the "Citizen Kane" of weirdness. Todd Browning's Freaks.