The Victorian era was one of science and innovation. Cameras, cars, electricity and evolution were heralded in under the reign of Queen Victoria. In the world of Chemistry, Dalton and Faraday were making discoveries in atomic theory and electricity. One of the most famous chemists of this era was William Henry Perkin.

In 1856, an 18-year-old William Perkin, Hofmann’s assistant at the Royal College of Chemistry, was tasked to create a chemical synthesis of quinine. Quinine is found in tonic water and used as an anti-malarial. Perkin made several attempts at the synthesis over the Easter vacation in his home laboratory, using coal tar as a source of aniline. Oxidizing the aniline with potassium dichromate gave a black sludge which didn’t contain aniline: it contained something far more exciting. Perkin noticed whilst cleaning out a flask with ethanol that a purple solution had formed – an observation which led to Perkin becoming one of the most celebrated chemists of the Victorian era.

The purple substance – initially named aniline purple – was one of the world’s first synthetic dyes: mauveine. Mauveine’s significance as a dye is its elusive colour. Throughout history, purple clothes have been worn almost exclusively by the richest in society due to the expense of creating purple dyes. Phoenician dye, known as ‘Purple of the Ancients’, is a famous example made from predatory sea snails.

Perkin was encouraged by his family to test the purple substance for colouring clothes. A sample was sent to Messrs Pullar of Perth who gave their approval. Finding success, he quickly patented the method. He set up a factory with his brother, funded by his father. In doing so, he brought purple to the Victorian mass market.

Purple became the height of fashion in Paris and London in the late 1850s to early 1860s, and the frenzy over mauve became known as ‘mauveine measles’. Even Queen Victoria was not exempt from the excitement, appearing in 1862 at the International Exhibition wearing a silk dress colored by mauveine. Wife of Napoleon III, Empress Eugenie wore mauveine-dyed dresses to stat functions.

But within this story there lurks a curious mystery. Closer inspection of Perkin’s synthesis method reveals that he may have been hiding something. There are eight bottles of mauvine alleged to have been made by Perkin left in the whole world, spread across six museums in four cities: London, Manchester, Bradford and New York. Museum-stored mauveine was tested in the 1990s and is rich in two main components – the chromophores of mauveine known as mauveine A and mauveine B.

Dr. John Plater at the University of Aberdeen repeated Perkin’s synthesis as it was written in the original patent, and here’s where the curiosity begins. The synthesis produces not two chromophores of mauveine, but four: A, B, B2 and C.

Did Perkin miss something out when he patented his method? Or are the samples in these museums not genuine Perkin’s mauveine? To solve this mystery, Dr. Plater began investigating the synthesis of mauveine. Perkin’s starting material was aniline extracted from coal tar, and later made commercially from coal-tar, which would also have contained two impurities, ortho- and para-toluidine, which have a similar chemical structure to aniline.

Dr. Plater’s attempts to make mauveine from different combinations of aniline and toluidines were always unsuccessful – he never managed to create a product with only the A and B chromophores. Every synthesis created four chromophores of mauveine. Removing the B2 and C chromophores was also impossible.

In the search for more information, Dr. Plater was given access to analyze three samples of Perkin’s mauveine. These samples were stored in museums: one in Manchester, Bradford, and the other in Sudbury, the London borough where Perkin built both his family home and his factory. One sample is accompanied with a letter, addressed to Prof Henry Armstrong Fellow of the Royal Society, from William Henry Perkin’s son, Frederick Mollwo Perkin. The ‘Mollwo’ letter, as it is now known, provides evidence that the museum-stored mauveine samples are from Perkin’s factory.

Dr Plater used liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) to identify the chromophores present in these mauveine samples. In LC-MS, liquid chromatography is used to separate compounds by running them along a long column filled with reverse phase silica gel. The different chromophores reach the end of the column at different times. Mass spectrometry can then be used to identify the structure of each chromophore from its molecular mass and the way it fragments. This revealed that the Bradford and Sudbury mauveines, like the Manchester mauveine, are highly rich in mauveine A and B.

Museum-stored mauveines match each other in their compositions, and the Mollwo letter provides evidence that the samples originate from Perkin. However, the synthesis described by Perkin doesn’t produce mauveine with the correct composition. Dr. Plater deduces from this that Perkin actually used a different synthesis method from the one he said he used.

A final clue in this mystery comes from six pence stamps. Victorian postage stamps printed using mauveine dyes are available to purchase online. Dr. Plater analyzed the mauveine in 15 six pence stamps using LC-MS. Each stamp had a slightly different composition, generally of all four chromophores. A fluctuating composition of mauveine provides further evidence that the method for synthesizing mauveine changed over time. Dr. Plater believes that his method is actually more similar than the method in Perkins patent to the method actually used by Perkin.

One question remains: why would Perkin patent one method for making mauveine, but use another? An answer may be to do with the yield of product. Dr. Plater notes that mauveine is actually very difficult to make. The yields are low – about 1 per cent. The method proposed by Dr. Plater increases the yield to about five per cent. Perkin discovered this synthesis by accident, but clearly understood the chemistry well enough to understand the need for research and development.

But there may be another answer to this question. In a lecture in 1896, Perkin revealed his concerns about his competition: other manufacturers of mauveine were using copper chloride as an oxidizing agent in place of Perkin’s potassium dichromate. Dr. Plater has strong evidence now that Perkin never revealed his true method. Perkin may well have done this intentionally: as the demand for synthetic dyes grew, Perkin wanted to avoid his competition getting hold of his secrets.

Perkin was the first person to mass produce a synthetic dye, but this research uncovers a new aspect to Perkin’s achievements. Analysis of mauveine stored in museums, Victorian stamps, and Perkin’s original patent provides evidence that Perkin iterated and improved his method of making his dye, making him one of the first chemists to realize the value of research and development. Because Perkin never revealed his true method, we may never know how he did it – but with Dr. Plater’s research we are one step closer to the truth.

It took a war, famine, and poultry to develop the technological breakthrough responsible for saving thousands of premature infants. The Franco-Prussian war in 1870-1871, along with a concomitant famine, had contributed to a significant population decline in France. To increase the growth rate, the French needed to start having more babies, as quickly as possible. But one obstetrician realized that if he could find a way to reduce infant mortality, then the population growth rate problem could be solved far sooner.

That French obstetrician was Dr. Étienne Stéphane Tarnier, who, having observed the benefits of warming chambers for poultry at the Paris Zoo, had similar chambers constructed for premature infants under his care. These warm air incubators, introduced at L’Hôpital Paris Maternité in 1880, were the first of their kind. Dr. Pierre Budin began publishing reports of the successes of these incubators in 1888. His incubators had solved the deadly problem of thermoregulation that many premature babies faced.

Dr. Budin wanted to share his innovation with the world, but few in the stubborn medical establishment would listen. Many doctors viewed the practice as pseudo-scientific and outside the realm of standard care. But Dr. Budin was convinced that the Tarnier incubators would save so many lives that he enlisted the help of an associate, Dr. Martin Couney, in exhibiting the new incubators at the World Exposition in Berlin in 1896.

Apparently blessed with skills in showmanship as well as medicine, Dr. Couney took the assignment perhaps a step farther than what Dr. Budin has originally anticipated; Couney asked the Berlin Charity Hospital to borrow some premature babies for this experiment, and they granted his request, thinking that the children had little chance of survival anyway. When he managed to hire a cadre of nurses to fully demonstrate the capabilities of the incubators, he was ready to take the show on the road.

Nestled between exhibits of the Congo Village and the Tyrolean Yodelers, “Couney’s Kinderbrutanstalt,” or ‘Child Hatchery,’ became a wild success. Remarkably, all six babies in the Tarnier incubators survived. From there, Couney took his entourage to the United States where he went on to share his show at virtually every large exhibition and at the World’s Fair. He ultimately settled at New York City’s Coney Island amusement park and connected parents eager to save the lives of their premature newborns with circus sideshow visitors willing to pay 25¢ to view the uncannily tiny babies. It was an odd connection indeed, but a brilliant one that kept the warming glow of the incubator lights on for over 40 years, and saved thousands of babies in the process.

The babies were premature infants kept alive in incubators pioneered by Dr. Martin Couney. The medical establishment had rejected his incubators, but Couney didn’t give up on his aims. Each summer for 40 years, he funded his work by displaying the babies and charging admission — 25 cents to see the show.

In turn, parents didn’t have to pay for the medical care, and many children survived who never would’ve had a chance otherwise. Lucille Horn was one of them. Born in 1920, she, too, ended up in an incubator on Coney Island. “My father said I was so tiny, he could hold me in his hand,” she tells her own daughter, Barbara, on a visit with StoryCorps in Long Island, N.Y. “I think I was only about 2 pounds, and I couldn’t live on my own. I was too weak to survive.”

She’d been born a twin, but her twin died at birth. And the hospital didn’t show much hope for her, either: The staff said they didn’t have a place for her; they told her father that there wasn’t a chance in hell that she’d live. “They didn’t have any help for me at all,” Horn says. “It was just: You die because you didn’t belong in the world.”

But her father refused to accept that for a final answer. He grabbed a blanket to wrap her in, hailed a taxicab and took her to Coney Island — and to Dr. Couney’s infant exhibit.

“How do you feel knowing that people paid to see you?” her daughter asks. “It’s strange, but as long as they saw me and I was alive, it was all right,” Horn says. “I think it was definitely more of a freak show. Something that they ordinarily did not see.”

Horn’s healing was on display for paying customers for quite a while. It was only after six months that she finally left the incubators.

Years later, Horn decided to return to see the babies — this time as a visitor. When she stopped in, Couney happened to be there, and she took the opportunity to introduce herself.

“And there was a man standing in front of one of the incubators looking at his baby,” Horn says, “and Dr. Couney went over to him and he tapped him on the shoulder.”

“Look at this young lady,” Couney told the man then. “She’s one of our babies. And that’s how your baby’s gonna grow up.” After all, Horn was just one of thousands of premature infants that Couney cared for and exhibited at world fairs, exhibits and amusement parks from 1896 until the 1940s. He died in 1950, shortly after incubators like his were introduced to most hospitals.

At the time, Couney’s efforts were still largely unknown — but there is at least one person who will never forget him. “You know,” she says, “there weren’t many doctors then that would have done anything for me. Ninety-four years later, here I am, all in one piece. And I’m thankful to be here.”

“Every word carries a secret inside itself; it’s called etymology. It is the DNA of a word.” — Mary Ruefle,”Madness, Rack & Honey”

“Etymology” derives from the Greek wordetumos, meaning “true.” The practice of etymology is uncovering the truth by tracing the root of a word. If you’re interested in language, it can be quite exhilarating. Like being a linguistic detective. There will be few pictures in this one so settle down….this will take you a few minutes!!!

1. Disaster

• “anything that befalls of ruinous or distressing nature; any unfortunate event,” especially a sudden or great misfortune, 1590s,
• from French désastre (1560s),
• from Italian disastro, literally “ill-starred,” from dis-,
• from Latin astrum,
• from Greek astron “star”.

The origin of the word points to unfavorable events being blamed on certain planet positions. Destiny is written in the stars – in some conceptions of fate in mythology, the universe is fixed and inevitable.

2. Muscle

A far cry from World’s Strongest Man, the origin of the word ‘muscle’ is perhaps the most surprising.

• “contractible animal tissue consisting of bundles of fibers,”
• late 14c., “a muscle of the body,”
• from Latin musculus “a muscle,” literally “a little mouse.

Rather than relating to strength and brawn as we understand it, ‘muscle’ is derived from the appearance of a muscle under the skin. Particularly biceps, which were thought both in Latin and in Greek to resemble a mouse running beneath the skin.

3. Nice

Perhaps you’ve been told by an English teacher in the past to avoid using the word ‘nice’. This is because the word is so commonly used in our language that it’s not highly descriptive or imaginative. Many English teachers consider it a cop-out. Yet its origins are far more interesting than the word appears.

• late 13c., “foolish, ignorant, frivolous, senseless,”
• from Old French nice (12c.) “careless, clumsy; weak; poor, needy; simple, stupid, silly, foolish,”
• from Latin nescius “ignorant, unaware,” literally “not-knowing,”

4. Cloud

• Old English clud “mass of rock, hill,” related to clod.
• The modern sense “rain-cloud, mass of evaporated water visible and suspended in the sky” is a metaphoric extension that begins to appear c. 1300 in southern texts, based on the similarity of cumulus clouds and rock masses.
• The usual Old English word for “cloud” was weolcan (see welkin).
• In Middle English, skie also originally meant “cloud.”
• The last entry for cloud in the original rock mass sense in Middle English Compendium is from c. 1475.

The origins of the word ‘cloud’ are surprising. You wouldn’t automatically associate their wispy appearance with the solidity of rocks. The etymology explains that it refers to the mass it accumulates and thus appearing similar to earth formations.

5. Oxymoron

This is a great example of the word being an example of itself.

• in rhetoric, “a figure conjoining words or terms apparently contradictory so as to give point to the statement or expression,”
• 1650s, from Greek oxymōron, noun use of neuter of oxymōros (adj.) “pointedly foolish,”
• from oxys “sharp, pointed” (from PIE root *ak- “be sharp, rise (out) to a point, pierce”) + mōros “stupid” (see moron).

Now, it’s used more broadly to denote a contradiction in terms. Originally, though, it was a clash of terms around sharpness and dullness.

6. Quarantine

The origins of ‘quarantine’ may interest you.

• 1660s, “period a ship suspected of carrying disease is kept in isolation,”
• from Italian quaranta giorni, literally “space of forty days,”
• from quaranta “forty,” from Latin quadraginta “forty,” which is related to quattuor “four” (from PIE root *kwetwer- “four”). So called from the Venetian policy (first enforced in 1377) of keeping ships from plague-stricken countries waiting off its port for 40 days to assure that no latent cases were aboard. Also see lazaretto.
• The extended sense of “any period of forced isolation” is from the 1670s.
• Earlier in English the word meant “period of 40 days in which a widow has the right to remain in her dead husband’s house” (1520s), and, as quarentyne (15c.), “desert in which Christ fasted for 40 days,” from Latin quadraginta “forty.”

We understand ‘quarantine’ as a period of isolation to prevent the spread of an illness, but the background on this is very interesting. The root of the word is more specific to the period of time elapsed.

7. Tragedy

Without the word ‘tragedy’, we wouldn’t have one of the greatest songs by the Bee Gees. But there is also an interesting word history to be grateful for.

• late 14c., “play or other serious literary work with an unhappy ending,”
• from Old French tragedie (14c.), from Latin tragedia “a tragedy,”
• from Greek tragodia “a dramatic poem or play in formal language and having an unhappy resolution,”
• apparently literally “goat song,” from tragos “goat, buck” + ōidē “song” (see ode), probably on model of rhapsodos (see rhapsody).

Although the specificity of the goat connection is debated, the connection to goats, in general, is accepted. There are a few different possibilities as to why. The etymology includes the literal translation “goat song”. Tragedy as we know it has its roots in ancient Greece, where it’s thought people dressed as goats and satyrs in plays. There are other theories surrounding goat sacrifices. Either way, who knew goats were involved at all?

8. Surprise

What would a list of surprising etymology be without the word ‘surprise’ itself?

• also formerly surprize, late 14c.,
• “unexpected attack or capture,” from Old French surprise “a taking unawares” (13c.),
• from noun use of past participle of Old French sorprendre “to overtake, seize, invade” (12c.),
• Meaning “something unexpected” first recorded 1590s, that of “feeling of astonishment caused by something unexpected” is c. 1600.
• Meaning “fancy dish” is attested from 1708.

When you think of the word ‘surprise’ today, you might think of smiling faces. In history, though, it had a much more violent origin. The word is rooted in an invasion in having the element of surprise as an advantage. It is also interesting that it has root words meaning “grasp”. This can also be related to words like “comprehend”.

9. Comrade

It is interesting how the word ‘comrade’ is considered a non-neutral term. Whether it’s a veteran recalling time spent with his old army comrades, or used among the political left. Its origins point to it being more widely applicable.

• 1590s, “one who shares the same room,” hence “a close companion,”
• from French camarade (16c.),
• from Spanish camarada “chamber mate,” or Italian camerata “a partner,”
• from Latin camera “vaulted room, chamber” (see camera).
• In Spanish, a collective noun referring to one’s company.
• In 17c., sometimes jocularly misspelled comrogue.
• Used from 1884 by socialists and communists as a prefix to a surname to avoid “Mister” and other such titles.
• Also related: Comradely; comradeship.

With this considered, you could call any of your cohabitants “comrade”. And it’s perfectly acceptable to use it for your partner, no matter what your politics are.

10. Clue

To end where we started, with the spirit of investigation, let’s have a look at the word ‘clue’.

• “anything that guides or directs in an intricate case,” 1590s, a special use of a revised spelling of clew “a ball of thread or yarn” (q.v.).
• The word, which is native Germanic, in Middle English was clewe, also cleue; some words were borrowed from Old French and Middle but these later were reformed, and this process was extended to native words (hue, true, clue) which had ended in a vowel and -w.
• The spelling clue is first attested mid-15c.
• The sense shift is originally in reference to the clew of thread given by Ariadne to Theseus to use as a guide out of the Labyrinth in Greek mythology. The purely figurative sense of “that which points the way,” without regard to labyrinths, is from 1620s.
• As something which a bewildered person does not have, by 1948.

The word origins rooted in old stories like this are the most fascinating. A clue could be any object now. But, once upon a time, it was explicitly a ball of yarn a character used to find his way.

Murphy’s Law

If anything can go wrong, it will. This expression appears to have originated in the mid-1900’s in the U.S. Air Force. According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle of March 16, 1978 (cited in the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang), during some testing at Edwards Air Force Base in 1949, Captain Ed Murphy, an engineer, was frustrated with a malfunctioning part and said about the technician responsible, “If there is any to do things wrong, he will.” Within weeks his statement was referred to as “Murphy’s Law,” and by about 1960, it had entered the civilian vocabulary and was attached to just about any mistake or mishap. In succeeding decades, it became a cliche.

If the shoe fits, wear it!

If something applies to you, accept it. This expression is a version of an older term, if the cap fits, put it on, which originally meant a fool’s cap and dates from the early 18th century. This version is rarely heard today. It’s replacement by a shoe probably came about owing to the increased popularity of the Cinderella story and, indeed, an early appearance in print, in Clyde Fitch’s play “The Climbers” (1901), states, “If the slipper fits,”

Pennies from heaven

The first time that the expression “Pennies from heaven” came into the public consciousness was on the release of the 1936 film, starring Bing Crosby. It wasn’t coined by the film’s writers though, having been used in print a few years earlier, in Abraham Burstein’s book “Ghetto Messenger,” 1928.

A country mile

The complexity of what a mile actually is, or more to the point was when this phrase was coined, is more confusing than enlightening. Each country that has used a mile as a measurement of distance, has defined it differently from all the others, and most of them have changed the measurement at some point. What may help is a look at some documentary evidence. An early expression in print is in a poem by the Cornish seaman Frederick de Kruger – “The Villager’s Tale,”1829:

“The travelling stage had set me down
Within a mile of yon church-town;
‘T was long indeed, a country mile.
But well I knew each field or style;”

It’s reasonable to assume that the expression originated in the UK. The expression crossed the Atlantic in the 19th century and is still widely used there. Hardly any early 20th century report of a baseball game fail to use the expression when a ball is hit out of the ground. The expression is used in pretty well every English-speaking country and many have their own variants of it. People also speak of a ‘Welsh mile’, ‘a Scottish mile’, ‘Irish’, Dutch’, ‘German’ and so on.

Back to the drawing board

This term has been used since WWII as a jocular acceptance that a design has failed and that a new one is needed. It gained common currency quite quickly and began appearing in US newspapers by 1947, as here in theWalla Walla Union-Bulletin, Washington, December 1947: “Grid injuries for the season now closing suggest anew that nature get back to the drawing board, as the human knee is not only nothing to look at but also a piece of bum engineering.”

A drawing board is, of course, an architect’s or draughtsman’s table, used for the preparation of designs or blueprints. The phrase originated as the caption to a cartoon produced by Peter Arno (Curtis Arnoux Peters, Jr.), for the New Yorker magazine, in 1941. The cartoon shows various military men and ground crew racing toward a crashed plane, and a designer, with a roll of plans under his arm, walking away saying, “Well, back to the old drawing board.”

Know the ropes

The first known use of the expression in print is a figurative one, that is, one where no actual rope is being referred to. It comes in James Skene’s travel mémoire “Italian Journey,” 1802: “I am a stranger and… I beg you to show me how I ought to proceed… You know the ropes and can give me good advice.”

Clearly, ‘know the ropes’ must have been in use in some context where real rope was being used before Skene wrote his diary, but it seems that no one wrote it down. The first printed example of ‘knowing the ropes’ which alludes to a context where actual rope would be present is in Richard H. Dana Jr’s “Two years before the mast,” 1840: “The captain, who had been on the coast before and ‘knew the ropes,’ took the steering oar.”

That clearly has a seafaring connection, although it appears to be using the figurative meaning of the phrase, that is, ‘the captain was knowledgeable’, but without any specific allusion to ropes.

Bag and baggage

The phrase is of military origin. ‘Bag and baggage’ referred to the entire property of an army and that of the soldiers in it. To ‘retire bag and baggage’ meant to beat an honourable retreat, surrendering nothing. These days, to ‘leave bag and baggage’ means just to clear out of a property, leaving nothing behind.

The phrase is ancient enough that the earliest citation isn’t in contemporary English. Rymer’s”Foedera,” 1422, has: “Cum armaturis bonis bogeis, baggagiis”. The earliest reference in English that most would understand is in John Berners’ ‘The firste volum of John Froissart’, 1525: “We haue with vs all our bagges and baggages that we haue wonne by armes.” Shakespeare later used the phrase in “As You Like It,” 1600:

“Let vs make an honorable retreit, though not with bagge and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage.”

Yada-yada

This phrase is a modern-day equivalent of ‘blah, blah, blah’ (which is early 20th century). It is American and emerged during or just after the Second World War. It was preceded by various alternative forms – ‘yatata, yatata’, ‘yaddega, yaddega’ etc. One of the earliest of these is from an advertisement in an August 1948 edition of the Long Beach Independent:

“Yatata … yatata … the talk is all about Chatterbox, Knox’s own little Tomboy Cap with the young, young come-on look!” All of those versions, and including ‘yada yada’, probably took the lead from existing words meaning incessant talk – yatter, jabber, chatter.

Yellow belly

The term ‘yellow-belly’ is an archetypal American term, but began life in England in the late 18th century as a mildly derogatory nick-name. Grose’s “A Provincial Glossary,” with a collection of local proverbs, and popular superstitions, 1787, lists it: “Yellow bellies. This is an appellation given to persons born in the Fens, who, it is jocularly said, have yellow bellies, like their eels.”

The usage wasn’t limited to the Lincolnshire Fens. In the same year,”Knight’s Quarterly Magazine” (London) published an account of life in the the Staffordshire Collieries. It began by describing the region as “a miserable tract of country commencing a few miles beyond Birmingham” and went on to recount a lady’s attempts at guessing the nick-name of a local resident: ‘Lie-a-bed, Cock-eye, Pig-tail and finally Yellow-belly.’

Up shit creek without a paddle

This slang phrase, like most street slang, is difficult to date and determine the origin of precisely. What we can say is that it, or at least the ‘shit creek’ part of it was known in the USA in the 1860s as it appeared in the transcript of the 1868 Annual report of the [US] Secretary of War, in a section that included reports from districts of South Carolina: “Our men have put old [Abraham] Lincoln up shit creek.”

In Lincoln’s day, as now, ‘shit creek’ wasn’t a real place, just a figurative way of describing somewhere unpleasant; somewhere one wouldn’t want to be. The ‘without a paddle’ ending is just an intensifier, added by later wags for additional effect. This dates from the middle of the 20th century. The American novelist John Dos Passos used the phrase in”Adventures of a Young Man,” 1939:

“They left the store ready to cry from worry. It was dark; they had a hard time finding their way through the woods to the place where they’d left the canoe. The mosquitos ate the hides off them. ‘Well, we’re up shit creek without any paddle’.”