Women Wearing Green Started Exhibiting Strange Symptoms — But Then The Grim Reality Became Clear
Once, a wealthy woman could go from envied and admired to pitied practically overnight. The reason? A gruesome illness — one that may have left its horrified victims with more questions than answers. And as the sickness weaved its way through Victorian England, people scrambled to find how it started in the first place. Then, in the end, they uncovered something more unsettling than they may have bargained for...
A real-life fairytale
It’s 1857, and a young woman is at a party. She’s witty, beautiful, and rich, but those aren’t what make her the belle of the ball. Instead, it’s her brilliant green dress that gets people talking. It’s unmissable on the dance floor, where she spends hours being spun around and around by her admirers. She feels just like Cinderella.
The monster in the mirror
Then after hours of dancing and socializing, the woman goes to sleep — perhaps dreaming of glass slippers and Prince Charming. When she wakes up the next morning, though, she isn’t greeted by a handsome man. She looks into the mirror and sees her fairytale is now a nightmare.
Her inexplicable symptoms
The woman is covered with scabs. Where they came from, however, she has no idea. And the sores aren’t the worst of it. She’s also feeling sick with stomach cramps — even though she hadn’t eaten anything out of the ordinary the day before. What’s going on?
An unlikely culprit
This may sound like something out of a horror movie, but for many women in the 1800s, it was a cautionary tale. Back in the Victorian era, wealthy women risked going to bed feeling perfectly healthy — but waking up gravely ill. And, disturbingly, it could have all come down to a green dress.
