Re: Personal Habits and Personal Style - Hair - Body #2

[CountessKate]

Frequently upper class children's diets in the 19th and early 20th centuries were prescribed by British nannies and tended towards the bland - boiled vegetables, puddings etc. and consequently not enough fibre, so constipation could be a problem - dealt with by dosing with the dismal syrup of figs, prunes, etc.  I haven't read anywhere that the IF was any more preoccupied with their bowels than anyone else of the era, but they would undoubtedly have been subjected to the normal attentions of their nurses and have shared the prevalent view of the time about the necessity of being 'regular'.

Like Marie, my mother recalls her grandparents born in Victoria's reign were fiends for morning bowel movements and prone to deal out prune juice and such like if their grandchildren could not oblige!

[NoirFemme]

And don't forget that they did not wash their hair regularly.

[Alixz]

And of course there was the ever popular "Castor oil".   ;-)  My grandmother (born in 1896) gave a strong dose to every one of her children in the spring to cleanse the body and get it "moving" for the summer.

[dmitri]

My Grandmother born in 1899 loathed Castor Oil.

[dolgoruky18]

All of the above methods were commonplace in the 19th century for ensuring "regulraity and good health". The Victorians tended to eat large meals and to suffer from indigestion and constipation. The novelist Henry James travelled all over Europe in search of a cure for his constipation.

The Imperial Family, as with all ruling families, had to be careful in this respect as they had ro attend long ceremonies without showing the slightest discomfort. The same goes for Elizabeth II today, who eats and drinks very sparingly at official banquets.

Nicholas II wa devoted to physical exercise and his confinement at Ekaterinburg brought on severe hemmarroids (sic). The Empress mentioned bathing them in her diary shortly before she was killed.

[Grace]

She bathed her husband's haemorrhoids?

[TampaBay]

And I thought the Windors thread was sick ?

Tampabay

[RichC]

Just when I feared people had run out of things to talk about...

I remember reading a letter from Nicholas II to his mother (written shortly after his marriage to Alix) where he talks about suffering from constipation.  I think he wrote in the letter that Alix gave him some "pink pills" which took care of it....

(Is there anything we don't know about these people?)

[Belochka]

What a distasteful thread!  

[Grace]

Just when I feared people had run out of things to talk about...

I remember reading a letter from Nicholas II to his mother (written shortly after his marriage to Alix) where he talks about suffering from constipation.  I think he wrote in the letter that Alix gave him some "pink pills" which took care of it....

(Is there anything we don't know about these people?)

Clearly not, it seems (although no-one's answered my 'haemorrhoid' query yet).

Still, as Nicholas was a grown man and the Tsar of Russia writing to his mother about suffering from constipation, perhaps he wouldn't mind us discussing him and his family in this fashion here, with tact of course!

[dolgoruky18]

Diary of Nicholas II: 20 May/2 June 1918 -

"At 11 o'clock a service was held in the house; Alexei assisted, lying in bed. The weather is magnificent, and hot. It's unbearable to be locked up like this, and not to be able to go into the garden when we want to, or to spend a pleasant evening in the air. Prison regime !"

The Guards' Duty Log Book: 20 May/2 June 1918 -

"A request from Nicholas Romanov, former tsar, to be given work: clearing garden, sawing or cutting wood."

Diary of Nicholas II: 22 May/4 June 1918 -

"... Alexei is much better, his knee is very much less swollen. I had pains in the small of my back and in my legs and slept badly."

Diary of Nicholas II: 24 May/6 June 1918 -

"I was in pain all day from my haemorroids, and for that reason lay on the bed, as it made it easier to apply compresses..."

The Guards' Duty Log Book: 25 May/7 June -

" Doc. Derevenko was not received. Alexei was carried out for walk time. Were informed by doc. Botkin that, as a result of enlarged veins, Nikolai Romanov was unwell and had stayed in bed, where he was also fed."


The above extracts all from "A Lifelong Passion : Nicholas and Alexandra  -  Their Own Story" by Andrei Maylunas & Sergei Mironenko 1996 and 1997.

_______________________

I have read elsewhere that Alexandra took it upon herself to nurse Nicholas II personally  -  she had qualified as a nurse during the War. It is in character for her to have done so for her husband, although no doubt Dr. Botkin supervised.

[Grace]

Thanks very much, dolgoruky18!

[carkuczyn]

Something has lately caught my attention......and that is the fact that you never see anyone wearing glasses in the pictures of that we see of the imperial family or even the general public of this time.  Did everyone have perfect eyesight in the imperial family?

[CountessKate]

Wearing glasses as a general rule was considered highly inappropriate, especially for women.  Olga Constantinova, Queen of Greece, had exceptionally poor eyesight, but did not wear specs - occasionally a lorgnette can be glimpsed.  It was also a no-no for men in uniform - and of course, most of the males in the Imperial family spent large parts of their public lives in uniform.  Some of the men in royal families who didn't have heavy military roles (although almost all of them had some sort of involvement in their respective forces) felt that the advantages of seeing clearly outweighed the general disapproval of wearing glasses in public - Valdemar of Denmark comes to mind.  But generally, I would say the wearing of spectacles in public was something that pegged you as a middle-class, bookish sort - a clerk or scholar - which was not something royal families or indeed any sort of family really wanted to present itself as, if there was a choice.  Hence specs tended to be worn indoors, specifically for reading or close work if necessary - outside quite a few people must have gone around in a bit of a haze! 

[carkuczyn]

i\I wonder who of NAOTMAA wore glasses in private?