Blue Blood
Lara Hopkins
origin of "blue blood" for royalty. On checking out some colloidal silver
webpages (stimulated by a debate in sci.med - don't ask) I found the
following:
A page pushing colloidal silver generators [1] states:
" In fact, the term "blue bloods," in reference to the royal families of
Europe, probably refers to a mild, argyrial condition caused by the
constant eating of food from silver place settings. "
The next page I looked at elaborated[2]:
"...kings, emperors, sultans and their families and members of their royal
courts. They ate from silver plates, drank from silver cups, used silver
utensils and stored their food in silver containers. As a result of this
use, silver was ever so slightly rubbed off and mixed in their foods. And
after a generation or two, they received the full benefit from the silver
particles which found their way into the body of these people, hence had
little chance of getting any infectious illness. These royals were
called Blue Bloods because their skin had a blue tint, due to the
accumulation of minute traces of pure metallic silver. The common red
blooded folk, however, ate from earthenware dishes with iron utensils and
frequently were sick, whilst the royals enjoyed the freedom from
infectious disease as early as from birth."
(Nothing to do with getting enough clean food, sanitation, being isolated
from the grubby masses with their salmonella and their TB, of course.)
The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable [3] says:
"Sang Bleu" = " Of high aristocratic descent. The words are French, and
mean blue blood, but the notion is Spanish. The old families of Spain who
trace their pedigree beyond the time of the Moorish conquest say that
their venous blood is blue, but that of common people is black."
I couldn't find any other theories. I am curious to know how the royal
infants had this advantage from birth - do they propose that the metallic
silver crosses the placenta? (No I can't remember atomic weights,
molecular size etc. We tell mums to avoid lead exposure so I presume if
heavy metals can cross, then silver can.)
Lara "whiter shade of grey" Hokpins
[1] http://www.elixa.com/silver/lindmn.htm
[2] http://www.herli.com.au/colsil1.htm
[3] http://www.bibliomania.com/Reference/PhraseAndFable/data/1101.html
StranglerW
>I've checked the FAQ and DejaNews, and can't find any references to
>the origin of "blue blood" for royalty.
www.wordwizard.com has yet another theory.
- Dave W.
David Budd
>
> I've checked the FAQ and DejaNews, and can't find any references to the
> webpages
's funny, I was thinking of trying colloidal silver myself. Looks like
it could be the next big thing in complementary medicine. Anyway.....
Completely off the top of my head, and with no backup whatsoever, I'd
guess that since blood is quite clearly red, whoever it comes out of, in
the term 'blue blood', "blood" most likely means "bloodline", and blue
is just a colour associated with royalty. Now what colour exactly was
reserved for the togas of Roman Emperors?
Charles A. Lieberman
["blue blood" comes from eating silver or]
> The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable [3] says:
>
> "Sang Bleu" = " Of high aristocratic descent. The words are French, and
> mean blue blood, but the notion is Spanish. The old families of Spain who
> trace their pedigree beyond the time of the Moorish conquest say that
> their venous blood is blue, but that of common people is black."
>
> I couldn't find any other theories.
I'd heard doing nothing all day made the blood vessels show through the
skin, which sounds really silly now that I'm typing it out.
--
Charles A. Lieberman | And I would've gotten away with it too if it hadn't
Brooklyn, NY, USA | been for those meddlesome kids!
calieber at bu dot edu
Ian A. York
David Budd <APRIL2...@mcc.ac.ukAPRIL23> wrote:
>
>guess that since blood is quite clearly red, whoever it comes out of, in
>the term 'blue blood', "blood" most likely means "bloodline", and blue
Blood isn't always red. Look at the backs of your hands; those veins you
see there are bluish, right? If you cut one of those open--I'll pause a
moment while you obtain a sharp object--you'll see nice red blood, though.
How come?
De-oxygenated blood, such as blood that's run through some tissue and
stuff, is a sort of bluish colour. If you add back oxygen to the blood,
either by running the blood through some convenient lungs or by cutting
open a vein and exposing the blood to some convenient atmosphere, it turns
red again. Hours of fun with your hemoglobin! Or someone else's!
The usual story about "blue-blooded" is one of two. The most common
one--which makes little sense--is that because the nobility sat around all
day, they had low red cell counts, and therefore their blood looked
bluish. Pah, I say (for no particular reason, I just like saying "Pah!"
Pah! Pah!). You need hemoglobin, and therefore RBC, to have blue veins.
More plausibly, but less excitingly, nobility would be more likely to have
pale skin, compared to the peasants who would be tanned by the sun,
bronzed by the moon, and copper-coloured in spots due to the action of the
stars. The bluish veins would show up better through the pale skin, so it
would look as if the nobility would have bluer blood.
Whether this derivation is true or not, I do not know; and I assume that
Lara knew the theories and was asking whether the derivation is true, so
this post is aactually almost entirely useless. However, it may direct
the uselessness in the proper direction, and after one cup of coffee
that's about all I'm really up to.
Ian "Pah!" York
--
Ian York (iay...@panix.com) <http://www.panix.com/~iayork/>
"-but as he was a York, I am rather inclined to suppose him a
very respectable Man." -Jane Austen, The History of England
Jeremy W. Burgeson
><...>
>The next page I looked at elaborated[2]:
>
>"...kings, emperors, sultans and their families and members of their royal
>courts. They ate from silver plates, drank from silver cups, used silver
>utensils and stored their food in silver containers. As a result of this
>use, silver was ever so slightly rubbed off and mixed in their foods. And
>after a generation or two,
><...>
I like it and have never heard it before. Since this makes me
completely unqualified to comment, I have to post something.
There is really only one thing I'd like to say. What's this
"after a generation or two" stuff? If it's a colorful way of
talking about time passed (we all know grandmothers, or know
somebody that does), that's okay. I doubt that the % of silver
making up my father's body immediately before my conception has
much to do with mine. After 30-odd years, how much of my mother's
silver content before birth would still be with me?
Sure am glad I lost 3X my birthweight last summer. Hopefully it
was all the bad stuff.
Jeremy
Fred Bohle
my mother told me this many years ago when I asked about the origin
of the phrase.
Due to the inbreeding among royalty, the frequency of "blue babies"
was much higher than it was among the common folk. So royalty
got this tag.
Fred
StranglerW wrote:
> Lara Hopkins wrote:
> >I've checked the FAQ and DejaNews, and can't find any references to
> >the origin of "blue blood" for royalty.
>
D.M. Procida
> "Sang Bleu" = " Of high aristocratic descent.
And of course "Sans sang bleu" (not of noble descent), a phrase which
inspired some beatiful songs of the common people.
Daniele
Joseph Michael Bay
>Whether this derivation is true or not, I do not know; and I assume that
>Lara knew the theories and was asking whether the derivation is true, so
>this post is aactually almost entirely useless.
m*tt*!
--
Joseph M. Bay Lamont Sanford Junior University
Putting the "harm" in molecular pharmacology since 1998
T h e r e i s n o g o v e r n o r a n y w h e r e .
http://www.stanford.edu/~jmbay
Crash Johnson
[Durant?] to the lead in the pipes of the water distribution system building
up to toxic levels of retardation. Silver is a heavy metal [biologically
speaking] and could be toxic, I suppose. Cite anyone ?
Your current silver content due to your parents would be in the femtogram
range. Your Father contributed one (1) Sperm. Your Mother one (1) ovum, plus
maybe 6 pounds. Total weight of silver ? << 1 gram. % Au? << .0001% or they
would have been dead. [What is the LD for silver?] Since this transferred
characteristic would not increase during your growth, your silver content is
your own responsibility.
Crash ' your intelligence, on the other hand. . . ' Johnson
Jeremy W. Burgeson wrote in message <7fqjhm$2...@sjx-ixn6.ix.netcom.com>...
pf
Deborah Stevenson wrote:
> While I haven't read the Pottses' _Queen Victoria's Gene_, my
> understanding is that it theorizes the fault lay in her rather
> indiscriminate mother's choice of bed partner and that it wasn't a
> spontaneous mutation at all. I've no idea how seriously this book should
> be treated, but it's certainly an interesting idea.
That bed partner would have to be a hemophiliac who had reached reproductive age. Not
very likely in those days, but I suppose not impossible. Now that they've finished
tracking down Jefferson's Y, maybe they can amuse themselves with Victoria's secret.
PF
Deborah Stevenson
>Another story focuses on the Hapsburg Jaw. They're supposed to be so
>inbred that they can't eat because of malformation of the jaw. The
>Hapsburgs, judging by portraits, have receding jaws. But Victoria
>apparantly passed on a spontaneously mutated gene for hemophilia. It
>wasn't in the family before her, was it? Must have been her fault.
While I haven't read the Pottses' _Queen Victoria's Gene_, my
understanding is that it theorizes the fault lay in her rather
indiscriminate mother's choice of bed partner and that it wasn't a
spontaneous mutation at all. I've no idea how seriously this book should
be treated, but it's certainly an interesting idea.
Deborah "which side of the blanket is which?" Stevenson
(stev...@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu)
Lara Hopkins
> I have heard that the Fall of the Roman Empire could be attributed
> [Durant?] to the lead in the pipes of the water distribution system building
> up to toxic levels of retardation. Silver is a heavy metal [biologically
> speaking] and could be toxic, I suppose. Cite anyone ?
Argyria. Harmless biologically, but odd to look at. For more info, check out:
http://homepages.together.net/~rjstan/
http://www.familyinternet.com/quackwatch/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/PhonyAds/silverad.html
http://www.healthwell.com/delicious-online/D_Backs/Jun_98/nutadv.cfm?path=hw
or wander over to the colloidal silver thread in sci.med.
Lara
Cambias
<fern...@wusspamtlb.wustl.edu> wrote:
> Deborah Stevenson wrote:
>
> > While I haven't read the Pottses' _Queen Victoria's Gene_, my
> > understanding is that it theorizes the fault lay in her rather
> > indiscriminate mother's choice of bed partner and that it wasn't a
> > spontaneous mutation at all. I've no idea how seriously this book should
> > be treated, but it's certainly an interesting idea.
>
> That bed partner would have to be a hemophiliac who had reached
reproductive age. Not
> very likely in those days, but I suppose not impossible. Now that
they've finished
> tracking down Jefferson's Y, maybe they can amuse themselves with
Victoria's secret.
>
Get a biography of Queen Victoria. Find a picture of her father. Now
find a picture of Victoria in old age. Get a felt-tip pen and draw big
bushy sideburns on her like the ones her father had. She's his kid, all
right.
Her mother wasn't indiscriminate with her partners; merely unwise. She
took up with one fellow and was essentially his common-law wife (and
possibly married in secret). He had visions of being the Power Behind the
Throne, which lasted until about ten seconds after Victoria's coronation.
Cambias
_not_ amused
Sher78bear
and said it was like a miracle cure for cuts and stuf like that...is this true?
please let me know:)
sherry
Heather of the Hill People
Crash Johnson wrote in message:
>I have heard that the Fall of the Roman Empire could be attributed
>[Durant?] to the lead in the pipes of the water distribution system
building
>up to toxic levels of retardation.
The lead bit isn't true. The Romans weren't as stupid as people like to
think. Contrary to what Gibbon('The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire') and
modern day Millennialist like to think, it wasn't a moral degradation,
either. It was economic. As are most historical motivations. Don't get me
started on the 'Fall' of the Roman Empire.
I think that Gibbon rates just behind Robert Graves ('I, Claudius') is
perpetuation and creation of historical myth.
Heather "Defender of Historical Truth(tm)" Gregg
Lon Stowell
Yes. It is very likely true that your manager and another friend
at your old job used colloidal silver and said it was like a
miracle.
After all, you wouldn't lie to us would you?
Silver is a disinfectant, and dear to the hearts and wallets
of snake-oil salestypes, a bit more expensive than the average
snake oil.
JoAnne Schmitz
wrote:
>Lara Hopkins wrote:
>>
>> I've checked the FAQ and DejaNews, and can't find any references to the
>> origin of "blue blood" for royalty. On checking out some colloidal silver
>> webpages
>
>'s funny, I was thinking of trying colloidal silver myself. Looks like
>it could be the next big thing in complementary medicine.
If you or anyone else reading this is even slightly seriously considering
colloidal silver, please do yourself a favor and go to
http://homepages.together.net/~rjstan/rose2.html
JoAnne "true stories can be just as scary as Urban Legends" Schmitz
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Lee Rudolph
>'s funny, I was thinking of trying colloidal silver myself. Looks like
>it could be the next big thing in complementary medicine.
They give it away free only until you're hooked, Dave.
Lee " " Rudolph