|
Look how far we've come!
When it comes to health and hygiene, the good old days weren't so good. This point is vividly brought home by the information contained in Against Disease, a book recently published by The Soap and Detergent Association and available at www.againstdisease.com.
Here are a few gems that will make your bathwater curdle:
- Europe, during the Middle Ages, went a thousand years without a bath.
- As the centuries progressed, even children in Western Europe, including those of the well-to-do, were not bathed.
- Records show that King Louis XIII had his legs washed for the first time at age five and had his first bath at age seven.
- In the U.S., in the early part of the 1800s, city streets were used for disposal of food wastes and dishwater, as well as being covered with horse manure. In most cities, free-roaming animals, usually pigs, scavenged the garbage.
- In 1837, average life expectancy in Manchester (a manufacturing center) was age 38 for professional persons, gentry and their families; age 17 for mechanics, laborers, servants and their families. Surviving childbirth was simply the first health hurdle in a short life span.
- In London, in 1842, there were reports of houses with "cellars full of night soil, to a depth of three feet that had been permitted for years to accumulate from the overflow of cesspools."
- In the mid-1800s, smallpox, scarlet fever, measles and diphtheria were so common that people regarded them as necessary features of childhood.
- During this same time, in Paris and Brussels, people could "hire" a warm bath in their own homes. Entrepreneurs provided portable bathtubs and hot water. The tubs were carried in a cart from the bathing establishment to the home, and then carted away again.
- Sanitarians – people who tried to introduce reforms in the mid-1800s – believed, quite mistakenly, that disease was caused by "miasmas" (smelly emissions from decaying organic matter).
The Hygiene Barrier
Developments that began in the late 19th century and continue today have helped to give us the freedom to experience our lives without the impediments of debilitating diseases or the tragedy of premature death. Here are just a few of these significant developments:
- Vaccines. Today, vaccines successfully control whooping cough, measles, diphtheria, rubella and polio. With no case of naturally occurring smallpox detected anywhere in the world since October 1977, the disease has been officially declared eliminated.
- Soap production and use. In 1833, reformers in England convinced the government to reduce the soap tax. By 1853, it was eliminated. As a result, the domestic use of soap increased from 3.6 pounds per person in 1801 to 8 pounds in 1861. By 1937, the number had grown to 20 pounds per person.
- Running water. The big transformation in personal hygiene didn't occur until running water could be provided to homes from municipal treatment and distribution systems. Along with water-heating devices, plumbing, baths and sinks, building improvements and drainage systems, running water permitted the installation of true bathrooms in middle-class homes and the prospering labor classes.
The hygienic quality of our environment dramatically reduces routine exposures to pathogenic organisms. However, along with this reduction to exposure, susceptibility to many disease-causing organisms has increased. Therefore, it's important to continually look for ways of improving and maintaining high levels of hygiene.
Email
Us
 |
Cleaning Matters is
compiled by The Soap and Detergent Association and is
not copyrighted. Such information is offered solely to
aid the reader. The Soap and Detergent Association and
its member companies do not make any guarantees or warranties,
expressed or implied, with respect to the information
contained in Cleaning Matters and assume no responsibility
for the use of this information. |
|
