Comments by "Big Blue" (@bigblue6917) on "Effortless Style: The Bowler Hat Through History" video.

@obelic71 That will clear your headache.💥
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I actually do know the story of the Bowler hat but it is still interesting to hear it again. Two points. In Waiting for Godot the name is pronounced as God-o and not Go do. Mercury was an accidental product introduced into hat making. Human urine was used in the making of hats and mercury was often found in the urine as it was used as a cure for STDs. Constantly handling the hats meant that the mercury in the urine became absorbed into the hat makers body through the skin. Mercury was also part of the process of producing Daguerreotype photographs. The mercury was heated in a bath and the fumes were used to process the print. It should be remembered that the photographer would have been present at the time and would have inhaled the fumes. Later in the 19th century platinum prints were introduce and one method of toning a print was to use uranium. Who would think that being a photographer could be such a dangerous profession.
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