Virginia Smith - Clean; A History of Personal Hygiene and Purity (2007).pdf
 | Virginia Smith - Clean; A History of Personal Hygiene and Purity (2007).pdf Rozmiar 6,8 MB |
Those wet and wild ancient Greeks and Romans knew nothing of skin cells -- not to mention uprights and carpet sweepers -- but they believed in the power of the bath. For Greeks, "water was a primordial thing that flowed across all the social and semantic boundaries," taking on a divine aspect when featured in purification ceremonies. The Romans adapted Greek bathing habits to their own imperial culture. Their bathhouses became "masterpieces of the art" in which "the customer could wander at will, sampling each cold, hot, tepid, or steam bath." But those were pagan playhouses that lost their gleam when the Christian church rose to influence after the fall of Rome. "The ideology of cleanliness was turned upside down," Smith writes. "Judaeo-Christian asceticism insisted that the cleansing of the inner soul was absolutely imperative, whereas the cleansing of the outer body was a worldly distraction, and its ornamentation a positive sin." Christians eventually reconciled bathing with their spiritual striving, however, and by the medieval era, monasteries were the best places to find excellent baths and latrines.
In the 21st century, personal hygiene has "reached a stage of general consensus," incorporating venerable associations of purity, sanitation and spiritual health. But Smith rightly notes that "for many people today there is one sole and sufficient reason for practising personal hygiene that eclipses all others: self-representation." There had been earlier outbreaks of cleanliness as vanity, however, and perhaps never more so extreme as in the 1600s and 1700s. "Throughout both of these centuries," Smith tells us, "flesh was privately pampered, and everywhere on display." But hygiene often took the form of perfumes, powders and paints instead of soap and water, and "fleas, lice, smeared paintwork and powerful body odors" often lurked underneath the elaborate facades.
Not so for us modern folk, right? In the technologically advanced West, "decades of increased personal hygiene and cosmetic awareness have finally paid off. . . . There are, quite literally, many more beautiful and unblemished people around." And we're as concerned about germs as we are about appearance: Smith estimates that 700 new antibacterial cleansing products hit the market between 1992 and 1998.