Not a thread about a thread, but one spurred by a desire to see facts out there.
I hope it's allowed to stand as what it is, an attempt at some historical accuracy.
For those interested in facts:
Acid as a weapon of attack started in the UK more than 250 years ago.
the development can be tracked through the industrial development of acids. (similar pattern in the US)
Nitric acid used to be known as Aqua Fortis or Spirit of Niter. Sulfuric acid was known as 'Oil of Vitriol,' Hydrochloric as Muriatic , use of them as weapons is old.
In the UK a chemist created the method of mass production of previously discovered caustic substances for industry, which soon became an accessible weapon of mainly LC/WC people and socioeconomic equivalents everywhere.
The MC turn up in court much later in women's 'honor' against men, cases.
1750's first crimes are recorded in Ireland as weavers slashed and threw nitric acid on women's clothes made from imported Indian cotton, on the streets.
1760's same happening in London over women wearing imported French silk.
1766 interpersonal acid throwing at (female at male) partner, crime 1st recorded.
1780's citric acid and sour milk is replaced wholesale with acids in the manufacturing process, easy availability soars.
1785 increased attacks by weavers on imported material in mills, shops, and women wearing clothes from it, in the streets. Sentence now 7 years deportation.
Nitric acid is being replaced by sulfuric in industry, both are easy to obtain.
1805 public acid attack on clothes, purely personal revenge, recorded. (female)
1820's weaponized in industrial disputes, spreading to other trades and by then also being thrown intentionally at victims heads and faces. (male on male)
1830 sentencing increased. But issues around word 'wound' meant it wasn't until 1861 the Offenses Against the Person Act created certain prosecution. Maximum penalty was deportation with penal servitude for life.
Particularly high profile case of the time was Hugh Kennedy, hung in 1834 in Scotland. (by Albert Pierrepoint) He was a young servant who exacted revenge by “willfully and maliciously” throwing acid into the eyes and face of another servant, asleep in bed. Normally the worst sentence was lifetime deportation.
Mid 1890's it's into 'proper' fiction (as well as 1d dreadful's) Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle 1892 George Grissing The Nether World 1894, and Robert Louis Stevenson The Ebb-Tide 1894
'Throwing Vitriol.' had become common in Scotland in particular. One reason for prevalence there, was the biggest manufacture of Oil of Vitriol was in Edinburgh, but the press focused on the perpetrators class and nationhood.
In Victorian times the newspapers focused on an idea that 'Vitriol throwing' was a female crime committed mainly by women on other women through jealousy and revenge. Perpetrator figures for the era are 2/3rds female, 1/3 male, but a strong media agenda that only women would normally commit this crime, against other women from jealousy, so those generally were high profile cases.
In fact women threw acid at approx twice as many men, as they did at women, and men threw acid at twice as many women as they did at men.
1888 -1890 sudden onset of attacks by women on men in France. 'La Vitrioleuse' (the acid thrower) the scorned/ abandoned /cheated woman enters the arena of what was previously mainly a male on female crime.
1900 UK court sentencing seems to be affected by concepts of 'La Vitrioleuse,' and female perpetrators are usually LMC/MC in revenge over 'dis-honouring.'
1916 the act and aftermath becomes censurable in movies.
Basically who throws corrosives at who and purposes, fluctuates over time.
1930's Graeme Greens book Brighton Rock's central character accidentally blinds himself and dies attacking someone. Acid was mainly male on male then, but the book and films emphasis is now on comeuppance, getting it past censorship.
Late 1930's, laws change to restrict access to the strongest acids, and cases involving nitric, sulfuric, hydrochloric acids as weapons, dwindle in the 40's.
1950's and 60's sees a smaller reemergence, and its now mainly men using it as revenge against women (or the woman of a man they wished to 'get' at)
In two heavily reported cases the perpetrators are Black, and Maltese. Much inference that this is the issue, but they're actually the two outliers.
(In 1948 and 1978 a women was the perpetrator, and the press had a field day)
Generally 1970's until 2000 the press takes less interest and many perpetrators appear to have been diverted to psychiatric resolutions rather than criminal.
DC Comics villain Two-Face has half his face disfigured with acid.
2002 He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Skeletor's face and name results from an acid attack.
Top Boy 2019 shows the main character perpetrating an acid attack. Emmerdale and Corrie have had plot lines involving acid attacks. All these fictions including those in the 1930's, and 1890's, are just reflections of society at the time.
It was actually attempts to reduce the carrying of knives that had an unintended side effect of increasing corrosives as weapons, especially for robbery or gang violence. Mainly male on male up to 2017.
Generally the history of acid as a weapon has been to do with it's ability to devastate and 'lower' the victim permanently, combined with it's ability to instantly incapacitate from a safe distance allowing escape, ease of obtaining, and ease of concealment in a public place. It is almost always urban.
Revenge or robbery are the usual motivations form 1900 onward. There is no question that it is more potentially normalized in some cultures today, just as it was potentially more normalized in industrial Wc areas in Victorian times.
But, the common linkage throughout history is actually the ease of acquisition of the weapon as well as the potential permanent dis-figuration to cause suffering and rejection, and the knowledge it can be done without having to use hands or physical contact, so the outcome for the perpetrator feels safer and more certain.