HYGIENE FEATURE 11 CHTMAG.COM I, Cleaner CLEANING HYGIENE TODAY Much of the knowledge, experience and expertise surrounding cleaning and hygiene today is taken for granted. Sometimes we act as if cavemen washed their hands before roasting their mammoth meat and the Ancient Greeks whipped out the furniture polish before they had guests round for dinner. Naturally the truth is very different. For starters what is clean and what is hygienic are not always the same thing. In this feature CHT takes a look at what things used to be like, and how we came to know what we do now Head lice were so prevalent that it became common practice for the aristocracy to shave their heads and wear wigs that they regularly changed. It was a fact of life that teeth, in those days cleaned using just water and rags, would decay. Try and find a Medieval portrait of someone with their mouth open. Even the richest suffered, by the time she died Elizabeth I had only two or three teeth left, and they were reportedly black as coal. Of course things were worse for the poor in all areas. People covered their dirt floors with straw, but instead of changing it regularly standard practice was just to pile new straw on top of the old. The thatched roofs did little (if anything) to prevent bird droppings falling into the home and infestations of bugs were a fact of life. “ Health was sacrificed for vanity. Medieval make up was made with massive amounts of lead, which wasn’t known to be harmful. Cleanliness is next to godliness. Indeed the earliest advice around hygiene is found in a religious text, the Hindu Manusmriti. Bathing is one of the five daily duties in that religion and not being clean is how sin enters the body, at least according to some. Other ancient cultures and civilisations also placed huge importance on cleaning and hygiene. The Romans in particular are famous for their almost pathological obsession with bath houses. These structures would contain baths, saunas, spas and massage parlours. Aqueducts brought fresh water from the mountains and the capital, at the time the largest city in the world, was served by a massive sewer called the Cloaca Maxima, centuries ahead of its time. The Greeks were similarly fastidious, indeed the word hygiene comes from Hygiea, the Greek goddess of health. Both societies were aware that silver had huge health benefits. We now know this is due to its ant-bacterial qualities. It was common knowledge that keeping water in silver containers kept it clean and usable. Failing this a silver coin dropped into the water worked well. Centuries later, when medieval people had forgotten why the practice started, people still threw coins into wells and made a wish. They used soap when washing, indeed it had already been around so long that its origins had disappeared into the mists of myth. The Romans claimed that soap came from Mount Sapo, where animals were sacrificed. Rain washed a mixture of melted animal fat, or tallow, and wood ashes down into the clay soil along the Tiber River. There were however some massive gaps in ancient knowledge that would shock and appal modern minds. The link between hand washing and health was only made in the 1800s, though it was still fairly common practise to wash them regularly. In the interests of protecting those of you having lunch, CHT will steer well clear of ancient toilet practices. The words sponge and stick should suffice. THE MIDDLE AGES After the (relative) heights of the Romans, hygiene took a turn for the worse in Medieval Europe. Bathing fell out of fashion, indeed was condemned as un-Christian by one early Pope. OCTOBER 2015 Bathing fell out of fashion, indeed was condemned as un-Christian by one early Pope.”
Cleaning Hygiene Today October 2015
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