One of Sigmund Freud's early patients rushed out into an Austrian afternoon on her way to meet her best friend at a coffee house.
Over Cappuccino and Viennese pastries, she suddenly burst out crying.
Her friend begged her to share what was wrong.
"Oh, it's just terrible," she wailed. "Today the doctor told me I'm in love with my father, and. . .and. . .and you know, he's a married man!"
U.S. theatre gas-lightsIn 1816, the Chestnut Street Theatre at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was illuminated with gas lights. Impressed with Dr. Charles Kugler's demonstration at Peale's Museum of lights "burning without wick or oil," the managers, Warren and Wood, had Kugler install a plant to generate gas at their theatre. Although the managers announced that audiences could expect their gas lights gave "superior safety, brilliance and neatness," there was some considerable opposition from some quarters. The works were denounced as a menace to public health and safety, emitting an unpleasant stench, with a potential for an explosion causing death and destruction*. [Image top: gas-light fixture from another building; bottom: reconstruction elevation drawing of Theatre.] |
){kind=link}