An intriguing post by Selina Hurley, Assistant Curator of Medicine, on the Science Museum’s blog looks at their holdings of material related to the two brothers, Edward VIII & George VI who are in the news right now because of that film.
There are x-ray photographs of each brother’s hand, taken in the 1930s when such things still caused wonder & amazement. It is equally astonishing to think that for us it used to be a perfectly normal part of the shopping routine to have our feet x-rayed to check that our new shoes were the right fit.
And ah! if only everybody’s fingers were as long in the flesh as they are in skeleton!
The post also includes a picture of the bath chair used by Queen Victoria in her advanced years; Ms Hurley explains that, unlike normal bath chairs, this example was pulled by a pony, led by a footman, delicately declining to mention that her Majesty’s great weight probably made this essential.
