Jonty Claypole

So it's all there.

So the hysteria finds expression in the statistics which are given at the time of the number of sort of prostitutes or destitute women in London.

There are these insanely inflated figures which are doing the rounds.

And this largely comes back to a surgeon called William Acton, who was fascinated, obsessed.

with sex and prostitution.

He was the world's authority on masturbation in the 19th century.

I looked him up on Wikipedia and it says William Acton was a British medical doctor and book writer.

He was known for his books on masturbation.

I just thought it was a great Wikipedia.

He was also known for his opinions on prostitution.

And in 1857, he published a book about prostitution, saying it was this cancer that was eating into the heart of society.

And he came up with these wildly inflated figures.

He estimated there were 210,000 prostitutes in London.

which, considering London had a population of two million, meant that one in 10 people was a prostitute.

And there's a scene in the book where he positions himself on a street identifying women as prostitutes.

And what's ridiculous is he doesn't know.

He's just sort of saying, she there is a prostitute.

She is a prostitute.

But there is a sense in the 1850s of this kind of zombie apocalypse happening.

Taking over London of people, of just women turning into prostitutes and running amok.