Things that appeared more than 100 years ago, but many do not even know about it

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Some things seem to exist so recently, and viewers of films about the past are seriously surprised to find what they think are anachronisms. This can relate to medicine, mechanics, engineering capabilities, or some purely everyday things. It's all about the 19th century. It was then that it became generally accepted to look down on the past very strongly and deny ancient societies the ability to think and invent.

Color photo

After seeing a color photograph of the corset era, many are sure that they see modern coloring in front of them. In fact, the technology of capturing color in photographing was introduced in 1892, and it began to be used very quickly by serious photographers - so we now have color photographs of pre-revolutionary Russia and Britain. The process was time consuming and consumables not cheap, so black and white photography remained popular. Full color reproduction is believed to have become possible anyway only after 1905, when color reproduction technology was significantly improved.

To obtain a color photograph, three separate negatives of the same scene were first shot: for the spectra of red, green and blue colors. Due to the need to consistently change plates for photographing, it was possible to shoot only stationary objects and rather patient people. Moreover, all three negatives looked the same in black and white, so when getting an image on the screen (as the footage was often shown) or the photograph itself, when they were to be used to work with one, another and a third color, it was important not to confuse their sequence.

By the way, roll film also appeared in the 19th century - in 1885 it was invented by George Eastman, the founder of Kodak. Reporters instantly appreciated the novelty. It was much more convenient to walk around the city with her than with glass plates. The very same photography and photographing people appeared early enough for the descendants to have a portrait of Gogol - but not early enough for photographs of Pushkin and Paganini to exist (if we talk about two fakes popular on social networks).

Plastic and cellophane

The first film was made of plastic. There was only one plastic in those days - celluloid. It was made from nitrocellulose, some kind of plasticizer like castor oil or camphor, and, if necessary, a dye. Nitrocellulose itself was first obtained back in the thirties of the nineteenth century, that is, about two hundred years ago, but celluloid based on it began to be produced only in the fifties of the same century. Celluloid has been used for a very long time, even at the beginning of the twenty-first century one could find products made of this type of plastic. It was immediately recognized by its particular subtlety and lightness - ping-pong balls can serve as a model.

In the nineteenth century, dolls were made from celluloid - that is, the contemporaries of Sophia Kovalevskaya were already busy with plastic dolls in big cities. Celluloid was also used for other products, such as combs, parts of musical instruments, brooches, and so on. At the beginning of the twentieth century, a man's celluloid collar came into vogue, which does not require washing and starching - wiped it with a cloth, put it on, and now it, flawlessly white, props your chin. True, sometimes such a collar pinched the carotid artery, and the man first lost consciousness, and then died. As plastic, celluloid had two drawbacks: relative fragility and a tendency, if it was already on fire, to flash brightly, hotly, immediately burning to the ground (and setting up terrible fires in doll shops).

And at the beginning of the twentieth century, shortly before the First World War, cellophane, a transparent viscose film, was invented in Switzerland. It came from experiments to create a waterproof and greaseproof tablecloth that would make life easier for thousands of housewives. For this purpose, cellophane turned out to be too hard, and besides, the film was removed from the fabric base, it was only necessary to pull, but Jacques Edwin Brandenberger considered the experiment still not so useless. He decided to sell cellophane as packaging material. Already in the twenties of the twentieth century (during the life of Mayakovsky and Yesenin) in large cities of Europe and the United States it was possible to buy many different goods in transparent cellophane packaging. By the way, unlike polyethylene, cellophane is biodegradable and non-toxic when decomposed.

By the way, in some way cellophane is the same as viscose - it depends on how the starting material, an acidic solution of xanthate, is formed - with a film or threads. And xanthate is obtained from wood and bamboo fibers. Viscose dresses, unlike polyester ones, are environmentally friendly. The viscose fiber itself was patented several years before cellophane; it was promoted on the market as "artificial silk", it was used to make underwear, stockings, dresses, blouses and kerchiefs. This fiber can be produced with a different structure, which allows you to regulate the properties of the fabric obtained from it. Modern viscose "breathes", wrinkles less and does not wear out as quickly as it was at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Water and cold in the desert

Now, judging by the reports from many Arab countries, water and cold in cities among the deserts are mainly obtained in large shopping centers. But when there was still no electricity and bottled water in refrigerators in stores, in the east they knew how to ensure both the storage of food in a cool place, and the extraction of water where you cannot get to the bottom of water. We are talking about Iranian yachkhals and Central Asian sardobas.

Yachkhal is a cone-shaped stone structure that can often be seen in photographs from Iran. They began to be built around the 4th century BC. The word "yachchal" itself is translated as "ice pit", which already speaks a little about what was inside them. Under a cone made of a thick layer of bricks, a large cellar goes down - a warehouse for food. Ice inside in winter formed on its own, and in summer it could be brought up from the mountains. Or they might not have brought them up, but then the shelf life of the products was slightly less.

In more northern countries, a pit-cellar would have been sufficient for the same purposes, but yachts were built in hot climates. It was their design that helped to keep the cold inside. Holes were made at the bottom and top: thanks to the shape of the yachchal, cooled air flowed into the lower hole, which cooled even more in the pit, especially if there was water supplied through the aqueduct, and the heated one came out through the upper one.

The walls of the yacht were built with the help of a solution that strengthened the thermal insulation - so that the heat from the outside would not penetrate inward, and the internal coolness would not be dispelled by the hot wind. This solution was called saruj, and in addition to fairly common ingredients, goat hair was used. By the way, winter ice lay inside the yachts long after the warmth came, so there was no need to bring mountain snow too often.

Sardoba looks a bit like a yachchal outwardly, only it is more domed, and inside there is a pit in the form of a well. The water in this well does not rise from the ground. The structure of the sardoba is such that water particles entering with the air condense and accumulate on the walls of the well, filling it. Technically, it is more difficult to come up with and build a sardoba than to describe its action - moisture condensation. After all, there are such wells in the desert, where there is very little moisture in the air, but the heat evaporating it simply rolls over. However, the sardoba usually had enough water to water the average caravan in one overnight stay. Naturally, the caravans tried to maintain a certain interval relative to each other, so that there was definitely enough water.

There are more "anachronisms" than you might think

The ancient Romans built tenement houses of several floors, and some of them continued to be used in different parts of Europe in the nineteenth century. In Pompeii, there were pedestrian crossings familiar to us, in stripes. Only these strips were made of stones, strongly raised above the pavement - after all, transport went along the streets, producing a lot of natural waste.

Many Bronze Age civilizations, such as Harappa and Crete, had plumbing and flush toilets. The Egyptians and Incas used penicillin in its natural form - in mold, which, however, required the ability to work with it. They knew how to lift water mechanically before the invention of pumps - using the Archimedes' screw.

In Byzantium, there was a well-known female pharmacological contraception - a certain plant was used for it, which by now has already been completely exterminated. The Gauls used chemical fertilizers and chemical dyes for clothing. Pain relief during childbirth existed long before the nineteenth century - different civilizations used different methods. Unfortunately, due to the witch-hunt, European midwives stopped using painkillers, fearing that they would be considered witchcraft potions, and women had to suffer for centuries without hope of help in order to endure the pain. In case of too much pain, they now began to give a bite of a stick.

In the Stone Age, they knew how to treat teeth affected by caries. A small hand drill was used and the filling was made from highly curing resins with additional fillers. The Aztecs systematically built free public toilets along their wide, Roman-like roads. In Japan in the seventeenth century, an extensive state network of dog shelters existed for several years - they were closed with a change of government.

The first school for girls that did not train nuns in medieval Europe was organized by Euphrosinia of Polotskaya. The school was free and open to girls of all walks of life, they went there, not lived there - it was very unusual. The first school for girls outside the monastery was organized in the form of a boarding house and only for noblewomen - in France in the seventeenth century. Against this background, one cannot but be surprised at the progressiveness of the Belarusian nun, who lived five hundred years earlier.

Records have been around much earlier than the ability to record sound. They were metal records for jukeboxes with holes that programmed the sound - usually played by small bells on different notes. If the machine was good, then besides the bells there could be strings, and the sound became more varied. It was somewhat reminiscent of MIDI melodies on push-button telephones in the early years of the twenty-first century. These melodies were played in a circle, but the plate could always be changed. And yes, young people danced to them. Or the old countess sat and was sad. This is what kind of record you put on.

In addition to the plates, rollers were also used. A portable jukebox in the form of a box, often on a retractable stand, with a roller inside, was called a barrel organ. He was forced to play by turning the handle on the side of the box. The roller could be replaceable or not. Usually the organ was used for simple street performances in the courtyards of houses - a wandering musician began to turn the knobs, and, as a rule, his much younger companion or companion - to dance, sing or perform simple gymnastic and juggling tricks.

The first folding bed was developed for the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun. The royal youth was very sickly and could not stand or sit for a long time, so the court furniture maker came up with an easy folding-folding bed that could be carried everywhere behind the pharaoh. By the way, even the ancient Egyptians knew cement, plywood and so deftly handled primitive construction tools with the help of ingenious techniques and solutions that they can argue with the owners of modern tools. True, they had to invest more work and ingenuity.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, there were already electric irons and electric kettles. Only they were then not available to the general population. In the Soviet Union in the thirties, they could be found in the homes of well-earning engineers or professors. And hot water from the kitchen faucet still ran in the houses of Dutch housewives of the seventeenth century - Ladies in snow-white collars: How the Dutch did the household in the days of Rembrandt.