The science of health originated in ancient Egypt, but in fact hygiene in "pure form" appeared only some 150 years ago.
It is difficult to imagine how hygienic "features" were hiding behind the luxurious outfits, wigs and frilly imposing rests of the young ladies of the past. We present only the 10 facts of this "horror". After which they are automatically start much more appreciate our creature comforts.
1. hot bath ladies past and never dreamed of... Washed Europeans are very rare and very reluctantly, because it was believed that in the water, through the skin, the easiest to pick up an infection. Women especially were afraid to wash and carefully take care of the intimate area, as it was considered a direct route to infertility.
2. Until the eighteenth century, it was decided to rinse with water only hands and mouth.Wash his face not even the doctor advised, because it is believed that it is fraught with the risk of inflammation or loss of vision. Given the quality of the water and the level of sewage, the doctors had occasion to warn of the danger. In the XIX century, baths were taken in principle only during the disease, and only on medical prescription.
3. Even in the early twentieth century it was considered the norm, when all family members wash each other in a bath (most often - in one large tub), without changing the water. First junior and then senior.
4. Clothes and linens washed 2-3 times a year, using urine and alkali, and red wood beds become fashionable, because it was not as noticeable... crushed bugs. Incidentally, the canopy over the bed performed very practical function: thanks to them in their sleep did not fall from the ceiling, bedbugs and cockroaches.
5. To "drown out" the smells of unwashed bodies, nobles and aristocrats doused himself with fragrant herbal extracts, rose water, laying clothes pads with dried herbs. A perfume under Louis XIV were prescribed Royal Decree.
6. The first deodorant was released only in 1888, although he could hardly have "overcome" the smell of sweat. Effective antiperspirant saw the light in 1903.
7. Sophisticated time-consuming in their virtuosity hairstyles barbers fit for several hours with goose fat (it can live together and breed all kinds of livestock - lice to mice) or dealt weeks, so fashionistas to save the tower from the hair had to sleep on a special stand, and to scratch your head - use special coli.
If we are assailed by parasites, hair, rubbed with garlic, ash, mustard. Men began to wear wigs to hide natural hair loss on the basis of the running of syphilis.
8. Underwear and silk shirtshelped the noble ladies to protect yourself from mosquitoes: slippery fabric lice did not allow it to settle.
9. The "special" dayswomen used pieces of fabric and felt, making them a kind of gaskets that are washed and dried - ready for the next "critical days".
10. I had to do without toilet paper until the beginning of the twentieth century, though in China it produced for the Imperial Palace in VI century. Before the advent of the usual rolls used leaves, straw, grass (at best), and then - with newspapers and sheets of unwanted books. Older people in our villages, who have still the toilets on the street, and now stocking newspapers. Habit…
P.S.By the way, as a courtesy nod ritual was invented in order to remove the stinking hat away from a person standing next to the ladies. Wide field hats performed at the time the strategic mission: because the sewage flowed just from the windows, wide brim hat to somehow protect the face from the flow of "surprises".
