la guerre, la guerre, c'est pas une raison pour se faire mal

23-year-old Annie Budden went to dentist Nathaniel Miller's office in Preston, England one evening in January, 1895. she was a maid in a nearby household, calling on Miller to have a rotting tooth extracted. he agreed, and began dosing her with nitrous oxide to take the edge off the pain of the procedure

she regained consciousness normally after the procedure- and then lapsed back out of it. another doctor was called, Dr. Collinson, who injected her with ether, a controversial treatment for asthma at the time. half an hour later, she died

Miller told the Lancashire Post later on that he and Collinson did everything in their power to revive Budden, but that her corset had been "so tightly laced that [it] had to be torn asunder," and they were powerless to save her from asphyxiating. the whole thing was characterized as a cautionary tale to vain young women, and the world moved on. Miller was ultimately elected mayor of the town of Preston in 1910, and is remembered as a civic hero

I'm calling bullshit.

first, and possibly most damning, is that this wasn't the only fatality in Miller's chair. in 1882, 10-year-old William Smith had also died under nitrous oxide sedation in the same dentist's care. another doctor claimed to have performed an autopsy and found a tooth that had slipped out of the extracting tool and lodged in the boy's throat; he said this tooth had caused William to fatally choke. and maybe that's true- I just find it very convenient that two separate patients died in the care of the same dentist, while under the same sedation, and there was a convenient explanation both times

secondly, the evidence for Budden tight-lacing to a degree that could cause asphyxia is wanting, in my opinion:

Miller himself said she seemed healthy when she came in. if she had been tight-laced as he claimed, wouldn't her waist have looked disproportionately small? women who laced tightly usually wanted to show off their figures, and close-fitting upper body clothing was the norm for women in 1895 regardless of waist size

Collinson claimed Budden's waist measured 23" naturally, and her corset 18". that is almost certainly the closed measurement, though, and even corsetier(e)s of the 19th century admitted that most women wore their corsets with a gap in the back. though this was by no means universal, it's likely that the 18" figure given was not actually Budden's day-to-day reduced waist measurement

Collinson helped conduct Budden's autopsy and said he saw damage to her organs indicating habitual tight-lacing. this couldn't have been known at the time, but in the present day, an MRI conducted on a habitual waist trainer showed temporary movement of, but no serious ill effects to, her internal organs. additionally, the ability to control for other causes of organ irregularity without any medical records for Budden would have been nearly impossible

organ shifting while corseted only occurs...well, WHILE corseted. the organs move back to their natural position when the corset is removed. this was even the case with the recently-deceased Cathie Jung, who had been waist-training since 1959 and had a corseted waist measure of 15" (uncorseted, 21"). it can take a long time if someone trains with the consistency that Jung did, but then how would they get the measure of her natural waist while her body was still compressed enough to see shifts in her organs? if Budden's waist had sufficiently expanded for them to take its natural measurement, and at least half an hour had passed since the corset was removed, how were the effects of supposed habitual tightlacing still visible?

Budden's employer, a Mrs. Willan, was interviewed on the case and called Budden "a good girl of regular habits." tight-lacing was stigmatized at the time. it was broadly seen as foolish, dangerous, and extreme, especially for women in domestic service like Budden who were constantly under moral scrutiny by their employers. it was more common among actresses and other women who could afford stains to their reputation than maidservants who had to remain above reproach to stay employed. it's very hard for me to believe that a habitually tight-lacing maid would have been characterized as "a good girl" in 1895- possible, of course, but unlikely

"but Marzi maybe she was just tightlaced that one day!" who on earth goes high-fashion to have a tooth pulled??? also, they said she was a Habitual tight-lacer in their Definitely Possible With Late 19th-Century Medical Science opinions . for her waist to stay compressed a half hour or longer after the corset was removed, just doing it on her half-days off wouldn't have been the extent of it, I'd imagine. and again, the idea that she'd lace down specifically on a day when her big plan was going to the dentist does not sound plausible to me

in conclusion

in order for the death to have been caused by Budden tight-lacing in this manner, she would have had to be doing it pretty much every day, with no-one noticing including the dentist on the day she died despite the whole point of tight-lacing being a visibly small waist AND the alleged reduction likely looking out of proportion to the rest of her body

and furthermore, to see the alleged clear evidence of habitual tight-lacing on and inside her body, the doctors would have needed access to "control" images of her internal organs that would likely not have even existed AND to have somehow done the autopsy while her body was in some quantum state of both still compressed and fully expanded back to its natural dimensions, to get her natural waist measurement?

while it is absolutely possible that events unfolded as Miller claimed, I find the whole story fishy as hell. the idea of Fatal Vanity and women (especially working-class women) being too vain and stupid for their own good was incredibly popular back then- if Miller could get another doctor (again, a doctor who was also present when Budden suffocated and had a lot to lose if implicated in her death) to claim he'd seen signs that Budden was tight-laced, it would have been extremely easy to make others believe the story

I think Annie Budden was the second victim- currently known -of a careless man protected from accountability by his gender, profession, and social status