Historical Hygiene - A Filthy Tale
In our modern era we have the knowledge that washing regularly helps enable social interaction. It not only allows us to smell better, it aids in protecting us from a host of viral infections and germs. Today, If we come across a human "stink bomb", we sometimes can't help but respond with a visceral nose-quiver and, in severe cases, a quack and a gag of the gizzard. Well this, most definitely, was not always the case. Believe it.
Let's take a brief stroll through the ages (it's wise to move quickly) and give some insight and in-smell and take a look at just how lucky we are today that we don't have to continually rub shoulders with a general populace of sickly sweetly pungent people.
During the Roman Empire public baths were common. The Romans invented the ingenious aquaduct. Lord only knows why the Europeans didn't choose to embrace this invention. The Romans enjoyed these frequent and social bathing practices often. These were fairly clean times (of course, leaving aside the crappy practice of using a communally shared ass-brush at the public toilet - this is another story). Moving right along ... The Romans are also credited with the discovery of soap. Thank you!
