Victorian London's filthiest secret: The shocking true microhistory of the Pure Finders. This episode of The Margin Fact dives deep into the grim lives of the marginalized men, women, and children who were paid to scour the streets for dog feces (known as "pure"). We expose the dark, 19th-century street labor that powered the leather tanning industry.

Welcome to The Margin Fact, where we uncover the strangest, darkest, and most compelling moments of history from the edges. In this detailed episode, we transport you back to the tumultuous years of the Industrial Revolution in the 1840s and 1850s, where survival often depended on unimaginable work.

The Pure Finders were the lowest of the low in the forgotten trades of London. They collected dog excrement from the streets and courtyards—a vital and shocking raw material required for the essential process of "bating" hides in the tanneries. Their work made them social pariahs, yet their role was critical to the production of high-quality leather goods and accessories.

Their existence was meticulously documented by the pioneering social researcher and journalist Henry Mayhew in his famous 1851 work, London Labour and the London Poor. We examine Mayhew's original interviews, revealing the desperate poverty, disease, and social stigma that plagued the Pure Finders and their families in the poorest slums of the city. This trade was not just about waste; it was an entire subterranean pure economy, illustrating the complex relationship between extreme historical poverty, industrial waste, and the supply chain for luxury goods.

The practice persisted for decades until a combination of social reform, the growing focus on public health, and the devastating threat of cholera outbreaks finally spurred the tanning sector to search for cleaner, chemical substitutes for the "pure." This transition marks a significant moment in the history of Victorian urban life, industrial sanitation, and the slow march toward safer, albeit still brutal, working conditions. If you are a fan of forgotten history, social history, or microhistory, this story will expose the truly filthy reality behind the polished veneer of the Victorian Era and the cold indifference of industrial progress.

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Welcome to The Margin Fact! I'm your host, Bethany, and this is the strange, dark, and forgotten micro history of a device that fueled the biggest medical fraud of the Roaring Twenties.

This episode of The Margin Fact dives deep into the scandal surrounding the Violet Ray device, the undisputed king of 1920s electro-quackery. In the era of jazz and prohibition, the public was obsessed with the promise of modern science. Manufacturers preyed on this obsession, selling the Violet Ray as the ultimate cure-all—a handheld machine that promised to treat everything from cancer and paralysis to common baldness and neurasthenia.

The Alarming Reality of 1920s Quackery:

The Violet Ray machine was a high-frequency electrical device, essentially a small, decorative Tesla coil. Listeners will discover exactly how this device worked, why applying a purple light and a mild tingle—accompanied by the scent of ozone—was so convincing to thousands of desperate Americans. The device’s true danger wasn't the current itself, which was mostly harmless; it was the false hope it sold. We examine the horrifying fatal cost when consumers abandoned legitimate medicine and life-saving surgery, convinced the $100 home device was effectively curing their progressive, deadly diseases. This shocking failure to treat aggressive conditions like tuberculosis and cancer led directly to preventable death and disability across the nation.

The Federal Crackdown and Enduring Mystery:

The scandal grew so large that the federal government was forced to step in. We detail the aggressive legal battles the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) waged throughout the 1930s to dismantle the entire quack medicine industry. Learn how the FDA targeted the fraudulent claims, using a legal process called "libel of information" to seize and invalidate thousands of machines. The court victories established precedents for consumer protection that still stand today.

But the story doesn't end there. The Margin Fact uncovers the bizarre rebranding that allowed the Violet Ray to survive the federal ban. The machine, no longer a cure-all, was simply repositioned as a cosmetic acne treatment and a hair-growth stimulant sold through mail-order ads for decades. Today, these vintage electrotherapy devices are highly sought-after, collectible relics of a bizarre time.

If you are fascinated by 1920s true crime, the history of science, large-scale scams and fraud, Prohibition-era culture, or obscure medical history, this micro history episode is essential listening. We connect this historical quack device to modern practices, including the use of high-frequency wands in skincare. We also cover related search topics like Renulife, electrotherapy, Tesla coil medical devices, and dangerous household electronics. Subscribe for more strange, dark, and forgotten facts!

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Cadaver Synod: The Trial of a Dead Pope

Discover the most grotesque and vicious true crime story ever committed by a sitting Pope against his predecessor.

Welcome to the darkest chapter in Church history—the Dark Age of the Papacy. Forget pious tales of saints and miracles. This is an era of pure, earthbound political terror, where ambition was measured in daggers and vengeance knew no limits—not even the sanctity of the grave.

In Eight Hundred and Ninety-Seven A D, the Eternal City of Rome became the stage for a spectacle so shocking, it defies belief: The Cadaver Synod. This single, brutal event is a disturbing true story that historians still struggle to categorize. Was it political theatre? Was it an act of black magic? Or was it sheer, psychotic madness ordered from the very throne of Saint Peter?

Our victim is Pope Formosus, a savvy politician who reigned until his death in Eight Hundred and Ninety-Six. His fatal error was purely political: crossing the powerful Italian noble family, the House of Spoleto. Though Formosus died of natural causes, his enemies were not satisfied. Power changed hands, and the Spolaytos’ puppet, Pope Stephen the Sixth, took the Papal Chair, driven by a thirst for total, posthumous revenge.

Stephen the Sixth was not content merely to reverse his predecessor’s policies. He demanded the annihilation of Formosus’s legacy and every single man he had ever ordained. To accomplish this, Formosus had to be officially, legally, and spiritually condemned. The fact that the target was nine months dead meant absolutely nothing.

Under the cover of a freezing January night, Stephen the Sixth issued the most macabre command in Church history: exhumation. A terrified group of attendants and grave diggers were dispatched to the tomb, hauling the wretched, decomposing remains out of the sacred ground. The putrefied, black, slumping body—barely recognizable—was stripped of its burial clothes, crudely redressed in the full, sumptuous papal regalia, and dragged across the city to the Latteran Palace. The stage was set.

Listen now to this complete, unforgettable story of political terror, desecration, and final bloody justice from the most chaotic age of the Papacy. Subscribe for more dark historical true crime stories.