Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Hygiene
Episode Date: August 13, 2015This week on Sawbones, Justin and Dr. Sydnee throw the baby out with the bathwater (literally) as they explore the history of hygiene. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers ...
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Saabones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion.
It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil?
We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth.
You're worth it.
that weird growth. You're worth it.
Alright, time is about to books!
One, two, one, two, three, four! We came across a pharmacy with a toy and that's lost it out.
We were shot through the broken glass and had ourselves a look around.
Some medicines, some medicines, the escalant macaque for the mouth.
Wow! Hello everybody, welcome to Saw Bones, bones marital tour misguided medicine. I am your co-host Justin McElroy and I'm Sydney McElroy
City it's a very exciting day as you will know it is an exciting day. No, it is the is the birthday first birthday
I want our daughter
Charlie Gail McElroy. Yay
Happy birthday, Chuck.
We've told her several times today, but I don't really think it's...
Not sure she dropped it.
It's clicked.
Yeah.
She doesn't seem to understand why we keep singing at her.
But she seems to be happy with her new toy piggy bank and her potsy, the pot.
She seems to enjoy. Yeah. No, overall, she seems pleased with the fact that she got new things today.
Yeah, that seems to have clicked with her.
There's so many changes in the first year. I think the one that's probably most profound
and moving to me as a parent is that the things...
We kept her alive this long, is that?
Yeah, that was an achievement in itself, but...
That's a big thing, like, you know, we did it. We did it. Yay not
the things you
Clean up as a parent
Get grosser. I think over the first year of life. I think that's very true
Like if you start first with the obvious like when they poop
It's just like you know at first. It's just like kind of yellow and mustardy and whatever.
It doesn't smell like anything really?
Not really, no.
That is not true after they start eating food.
No, no.
No, then I mean, then it's like,
well, I mean, you probably know, because it's like,
I used to know what, what would end to her body
was just breast milk.
So it was like, you could only be so freaked out.
Now, I don't know what all goes in there.
She sneaks a lot of things in there
when I'm not looking. Carpet lent. saltines, salty crumbs from the carpet. Yes, she finds like her remnants from
earlier. Maybe she remembers where she leaves them. Yesterday, I looked through her vomit and said,
you know, I think those chunks of cheese were giving her too big. She's don't seem very well chewed.
I'm just like staring at it like just three in the morning. Charlie's not sick. She just, I think those chunks of cheese were giving her too big. She's don't seem very well chewed. I'm just like staring at it like just three in the morning.
I feel like I'm like, I don't want to.
Charlie's not sick.
She just, I think she just got too worked up.
And actually that was on her birthday.
And so she'd had cake.
Well today is her birthday.
It was her birthday party.
Well, okay, it was on her birthday party.
Anyway, and so she puked.
And like you really see everything.
I mean, she puked all over me.
It's so poor.
So I was intimately familiar with it.
Like I threw the shorts away.
Literally I just threw them away.
Cause like, they were covered in pieces of meat stick,
which that's a, anyway.
But, you know, clean up, I think,
hurt keeping her hygiene straight is the biggest change.
I think over the past year.
Well, you know just more hair.
I'll support you.
Well, yeah, that too.
But hygiene is very important. Well, I'm glad more hair. I'll support you. Well, yeah, that too. But hygiene is very important.
Well, I'm glad to hear that because if I've been wasting my time cleaning up after
her vomit, then I would be very frustrated, I think.
No, no, you've not been wasting your time.
We've known for a long time that cleaning ourselves in different ways to various degrees
is important.
And I think that may be an interesting thing to talk about.
Do it then, Sydney.
All right, well, let's talk about some hygiene.
I want to thank several people who suggested this topic.
Thank you, Lauren, Annie, and Russell.
Hygiene, the word hygiene, comes from the Greek goddess of health, Hygia.
And it's interesting because if you think about it, why?
Because I'm going to talk about some old, old, ancient hygiene practices.
But why do we, as a species, naturally tend to clean ourselves?
Why do we think that's important?
You know, I don't know.
I mean, I would think that it just feels right.
It feels better than being dirty, I think.
A lot of people have looked into this to see, is there some connection? Is there some evolutionary
advantage to feeling gross, so to speak, to getting yucked out at yourself and to wanting to get
cleaned up? You're on filth. Yeah, and the thought is that there probably is an evolutionary advantage because when you're
growing, you know, like, fungal infections or if there's bacterial infections stewing places
on your body, it smells bad.
And so, the, you know, the quest for nobo is probably, you know, ingrained in our DNA as
a quest to remove possibly disease-causing organisms.
And that's indicated by the fact that ants clean themselves.
Really?
To remove fungus, like little fungal organisms that grow on them, the ants clean some spiny
lobsters will actually avoid other lobsters when they have viral infections, so they'll
stay away from lobsters that may be gross.
And bees actually leave the hive to go to the bathroom.
Like to, you know, have a number two.
A number two.
A bee number two.
How polite.
Yeah, they don't want to contaminate it.
This very man really of bees.
I think I already thought a lot of them.
Cause I really like the honey serracha glaze
from pizza hut. But now I'm like way more beast.
I don't know that bees invented that.
Well, they didn't invented, but they put an integral.
Yeah, it's very interesting.
It's contrary to, I think the human inclination
to return home, you know, for your private bathroom time.
It's here for you.
To make a bathroom.
Secret bathroom.
Most fish, birds, and mammals clean themselves in their area, you know, their nests or their
hives or their, you know, huts or hobbles or whatever in some way.
So it's not just humans.
Everybody tends to stray towards cleanliness.
They've even seen chimpanzees cleaning each other, specifically, um, mommy and daddy chimpanzees
cleaning off baby chimps buts after they poop.
Oh, sweet.
So, yeah.
So this is something that, I mean, you know, it kind of, it goes beyond social construct,
most likely.
For us, like I said, the way that it manifests is probably discussed when we see something that we identify as like that's gross, that's yucky.
It's probably because it causes some kind of illness. And so it's our, we're biologically programmed to say,
well, stay away from that, or get it off me.
Yeah, yeah, yucky.
They've done a lot of studies to try to figure out
what we think is yucky, like showed people pictures
of things and said like, is this yucky or is this yucky?
And-
And Chovies, Dart, mushrooms.
Are these yucky things? Other people's PP.
Yeah, there's some yucky things I know about.
I could go for literally minutes, name a yucky things.
Don't test me.
Don't let's not, you know what?
You can do your own separate episode later, which is just you naming yucky things.
For half hour.
He's an ASMR stuff, who would love that.
It seems also that they found that younger people.
Stale chips.
You're gonna keep doing this, they're also.
No, no, I promise I'm not.
They've also found that younger people.
Rotten cottage cheese.
Yep, this is our show.
And women are more susceptible, maybe,
to yucky feelings.
And then there was some thought as like,
is that because women are involved
in like bearing children, carrying children, bearing children. So they need to be yucked
out by things more easily so they can stay healthier.
Wow. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. So we can further the species, you know.
I'll take your word for it. I tend to not comment on things like this.
I don't know. It's an interesting, it's an interesting idea. Although I would say between the two
of us, you are much more easily yucked out than me.
Yeah, probably, but you're kind of a special case
because you have, you like,
if cut people open a lot of times.
I wouldn't say a lot of times
because I'm not a surgeon,
so that kind of makes me sound like a serial killer.
Okay, fair enough.
Enough more times than me.
Yeah, that's well, that's fair, Marge.
I would hope so.
Yep.
As far back as the Paleolithic era, you see devices that people kind of made to like
tweez, you know, their eyebrows and trim their beards and whatnot, which was probably
a way to remove parasites, you know, license stuff.
So, you know, why else would you shave your hair?
I may have also been hot, I guess. But mainly to give you some of the new look. Come on.
That's crazy. The only reason you shave your head is because of disease. That's why. I don't
have a lot of bald guys with a Z. They would be really upset by that.
Soap dates way back to Babylonian times. But the Greeks and the Romans tended to use oil instead to
clean themselves.
They just preferred that method.
They thought it felt better.
We've talked about that before.
More aromains, especially rubbing themselves.
More erotic.
Exactly.
More erotically charged.
Much more erotic.
The Romans, of course, also had a plumbing system as well as public baths.
So hygiene, the idea of bathing and a waste removal system,
even some toilets that would have like a flowing water underneath them, a way to get rid of it.
That was already kind of a concept, you know, that far back. And again, this is before we had any idea of why it was important to stay away from,
from, you know, human waste. They also would use, they didn't have toilet paper of course, and in lieu of that,
they would use a sponge on a stick. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, you're really clean, I bet. Oh yeah,
what a great feeling too. Can't feel fresher than that. Is that true? Do you know that? I bet,
I bet, I bet, I bet, I bet, I bet you can't feel fresher than that. I don't know where you keep that,
I bet, I bet, I bet you can't feel the freshness. I don't know where you keep that,
but just make sure I never find it.
Deal.
There was also, sometimes if they didn't,
I guess if you didn't have a really fancy sponge on a stick,
you could also use little ceramic pebbles.
To what?
Like a exfoliate?
The Pesoi, Pesoi.
Like those salt scrubs, you get it to clean your.
Bath and body works.
No, I like to clean your butt after you go to the bathroom just rub it on some rocks
Like it. Yeah, just use some rocks and like they even know like just like three should be sufficient
Don't get don't get too ostentatious with your rock usage like three pebbles should take care of it
I guess for most people and don't't go skipping those stones across the pond.
We swim in there.
That's foul.
It's, I read an interesting historical side note
that some of these pebbles, pesto,
may have originally been what was called asterica,
which were pieces of ceramic, on which, like,
if you wanted to vote somebody out of town,
if everybody hated somebody, you could all write down names on little ceramics
Stones and turn them in and then I guess if they had enough votes, they would get voted out of town
So and that's where the word ostracized comes from and also where the show survivor comes from?
Well, I thought about that so it's kind of like survivor except if afterwards you use the paper where you wrote the name down to
wipe your butt
Maybe they do they there's a lot of editing that happens in those shows.
We don't know what happens beyond the scenes.
But, you know, we were talking, uh, talking the Romans up pretty well here.
They also, although they did have a plumbing system,
they also were not that afraid of, you know, dirt and being dirty and,
and kind of the idea that you were sweaty and needed a shower or bath because
It was known that they would sell the dirt and the sweat and the oil that they would like collect in little vials off of famous athletes
Two people to use as face cream. Oh, that's where a axe body spray comes from
People don't know that we're gonna get an assy letter from axe body spray. from. Not people don't know that. We're going to get an assy letter from Axe body spray.
Let him come at me.
There's also some evidence if you look back in ancient writings.
There are a lot of different thinkers who advise that you stay away from sick
people with this basic idea that there's something out there that could make you
sick.
We, uh, the Ebersapyrus also mentioned soap.
It was made back before we knew,
I mean, we kind of always knew how to make soap.
We used to make it out of like water
and these alkali salts and you could use either an oil
or an animal fat.
So, you know, we've known how to make salt for a long time.
Pliny was the first one, one of our favorite characters.
Good old Pliny.
Pliny the Elder, who talked about soap or it was called
Sapo, which really is just the word for soap.
Yeah, I think it doesn't make stuff the pee in the soap.
Yeah.
Noting that it was made from Talo and Ashes, however,
Pliny says this is really, you know,
it doesn't have a lot of uses, unlike a lot of other things
that Pliny would be like, oh, this is really, you know, it doesn't have a lot of uses. Unlike a lot of other things that Plenty would be like,
oh, this is good for everything.
No, soap was good for hair pomade.
A great look. I mean, that's true.
It's weird that he didn't see the benefits of soap
and yet he was so hot and like, like, fox hair mixed up with grease.
Well, he kind of wrote about it scornfully, like,
all these men today with their fancy soap hair.
Maybe that was the only thing he could figure out
to do with it.
Like, what is this?
In my day, we just shaved our heads.
Because of the disease.
Because of the lights.
Apparently, and lights.
There's a story that there was a mount sopho
where, and that this is where soap comes from,
that there were, there's this mountain where animals were sacrificed.
And because the animals were killed there and burned,
that there was like this collection of animal fat and ashes
that kind of flowed from the mountain,
and that people like gathered that up,
and that was the creation of soap.
But how fascinating.
I never knew that origin story of soap.
Well, that's not true.
Oh, well, I've forgotten it instantly.
It's a cool story. I wish it was true. What story?
I've already banished it from my mind. Just keep thinking of gross things that you can tell me about later.
Coming up next, coming up after the break.
Come on the bottom of your chair.
Hate that. Who put it there? Not me.
your chair. Hate that. Who put it there? Not me. Gailin had the revolutionary idea of using the soap that Plenty talked about as
hair pomade for washing oneself. Even noting that if you wanted the best soap,
you would go to the Germans. And if you wanted the second best soap, you would go
to Gaul or France. Gaul, those those are tell amount of for a long time.
Goal, home of the second best soap.
When you can't make it to Germany, turn to goal.
Their soap's pretty good.
Their soap's okay.
For washing.
And it's also something that you'll find in many major religious texts, the idea that
there should be certain cleansing rituals or at least,
you know, keep yourself clean. And that's also where we kind of, we've talked about before,
the idea of a measma theory of disease, like the disease is kind of floating around in the air
and that if you inhale these foul airs, they'll get sick. It initially was a religious term,
it referred to a stain or a sin of some kind,
something that offended the gods or God, but eventually it became associated with disease.
You see this kind of linkage in religious texts where there's this bad, you need to cleanse
yourself to spiritually cleanse yourself, but you also need to literally take a bath in a shower
because God likes that. Yeah. God improves. Hand washing is actually a thing long before we understood
why we were doing it, but really just before meals. But it was suggested that before you go sit down
and eat, you wash your hands. How are they doing it? I think, I mean, my guess would be that this
is a time when there were a lot of people with really dirty hands.
Yeah, I mean, it has to be just a visual thing
of nothing else, right?
Like your hands look dirty.
You've been working on your car all day or whatever.
Right, and you actually have like particles
that you can see of things on your hands.
So you're not washing it with the intention
that I'm going to remove disease-causing bacteria
and viruses.
You're washing your hands because you don't want to get
like cow poop on your food. Probably.
Like just because in the theory of germ, well just because germ theory wasn't a thing yet,
doesn't mean like dirty, you wasn't. Like people still understand dirty, you don't have to be a,
you know, particularly advanced to get that.
Yeah, and that's interesting because even as we're going to talk about a time when bathing
wasn't a cool thing to do, because there's a time period where bathing falls greatly out of favor
You know unlike like we have the Romans and all of these public baths and everybody likes these long
kind of sensual kind of
Orgy-esque bath houses
And then we move into a long period of time where that's not cool people are still washing their hands
Which is good because we usually ate with our hands.
However, after a while, we kind of move a step backwards
from the sponge on the stick idea, that kind of fades in.
Things got worse from that.
Things got worse.
And then you see people using, in addition to stones,
that we mentioned, like corn cobs and leaves,
snow seashells, grass, animal fur, or just your hands. If you
had nothing else, so...
So what's next? What's next? What's next time period?
Well, before I take you there Justin,
will you come with me to the building department? Let's go!
The medicines were medicines that I skilled let my God for the mouth.
So Sid, medieval times, what was gone on there
in regards to cleanliness?
So when people think about like,
because there's a lot of talk about how back in the olden days,
olden, olden times.
The olden times.
Yeah, olden, what do we call them, olden people,
whatever, old timey people.
Old timey people. Olden timey people.
Olden timey people.
In the olden times.
There's a lot of talk about how gross they were
and this is usually what people were talking about.
What's in the Almos program?
Yeah, we joke about that a lot.
Some of it is not well-founded and then there's some of it is.
So in medieval times, bathing started to fall out of fashion somewhat.
Initially, as we enter the medieval period, it was okay, but it wasn't done in big public
bathhouses.
Those start to fall out of fashion, and you see those slowly being closed, especially
by the churches, the church got involved.
And in part of it was in an effort to stop syphilis.
Excellent.
So you start seeing the closing of public bath houses
for that reason.
But it was still okay to take a bath.
And in fact, a married couple's first bath together
was a really important part of, you know, like that.
You were a crowded part of their,
really uncomfortable, honestly, part of their.
Yeah.
What are you trying to say?
I'm saying that medieval tubs were probably not the spacious luxurious tubs and maybe like,
you know, they're waiting all night for this night and they're like,
I love you, but please just move your arm out.
I'm suffocating.
Are we done yet?
We're done yet?
There's even, I guess there's a fresco of a married couple having their first bath together in the town hall in
Son
Jimmy Jimmy say that for me Justin. Oh
Son, Jim, agon. No
Italy Italy a town in Italy
I'm just right. I'm a town in Italy. There's a town in the notes
What and you want me to make it up? Just right now. just say there's a town hall and a small town in Italy.
I'm trying to be accurate.
You're not.
You're just failed miserably.
You made me try to be accurate for you.
Over time, this favorable view of bathing started to change.
This is because of a couple of things.
First, you would only have access to what we would consider like a proper bath if you were
rich or probably royalty. Otherwise, you may not have had a bathtub or certainly the means
to get all the water, you would need to fill it up because I mean, obviously you didn't have plumbing.
Right. So if you were royalty, your bath would involve you climbing into your very fancy copper
tub that was lined with something very soft and you would sit in there naked while
servants came, bucket by bucket, heating up water and then dumping it into the tub around you
and probably with some scented oils and it would be very luxurious and take a very long time.
Sounds nice. Now if you couldn't afford that. Sounds like a dish soap commercial.
what it sounds like to me is like a dish soap commercial. Like just a guy imagining himself in that scenario.
You know,
while he's washing dishes.
Well, he's like, you think it's that?
And it's like smash cut to him,
like inhaling the bottle of like dawn
or something, it's like this way,
this just puts me away too.
This is the new Calgon ad.
Yeah, we got, we bought a bottle of dawn
that was like mango beach vacation.
And it's like, I really, if you need to be whisked away by the scent of your
dishwasher detergent, you should probably like try to reprioritize.
Like just do it like really, if you need that for like, if that's your like,
if that's your bit of serenity in the world is like oh god let's get these dishes clean like I really really need to reorganize or just start you know
saving up a little bit of time and go to the beach that said I still bought it so like where am I at
I don't know I'm moving target folks so like said, if you couldn't afford these very fancy bath
tubs that you're dreaming of, well, Justin's dreaming of,
well, he's washing dishes later, then you may have like a modest,
smaller tub in your home that you could go through the time and
trouble of filling up for yourself or maybe even a barrel.
If you didn't have anything else.
God, always don't take bath in barrel.
There's nothing funny in that to me.
If you did have a bathtub like this, but you weren't a royal person, then you were
probably going to share that bathwater with your family because you went through a lot of time and
effort. If you did bother to get it heated up, to get it all heated up and fill up this big tub,
and then you're going to have to empty it all out. So what would happen is that dad would get first crack at the tub and then mom.
And it just kind of goes down the line from there, starting with the oldest child
all the way down to the youngest who goes last in the dirtiest of dirty bath water,
which is where the phrase don't throw the baby out with the bath water comes from.
How nice. And also Trump, how nice.
And also, that's not nice.
Well, that's very nice to know, but that's crazy that they were making their, hey, baby,
you ready to get that immune system crank?
Hey, baby, it's time to activate that vitamin C that you're not getting.
We would at least be in, okay, we would have been in okay positions as the oldest children, you know, I, we would at least be in okay, we would have been in okay positions
as the oldest children, you know, I guess we just have to buy in the middle of your mom
and dad's sales.
That's doing well.
Think about Riley and Griffin there at the bottom of this.
Right.
That's a lot of, ugh, this is yucky me out.
Can we move on another thing?
So, okay, so maybe you're, you're lucky enough to not be able to
afford that. Then, then you don't have a bathtub at all. So, you may go your whole life and never be
fully submerged in water. In which case, you would just kind of dab at yourself with like a
damp cloth and whatever water you had access to when you had the time. And then you would probably
just put on a lot of
something floral, something scented to try to hide all the, you know, the icky smell. We're
obviously talking, I would guess, here in places that are landlocked. If you're living on the water,
as a lot of people did, I imagine there's, you know, it's a lot easier to keep up with this stuff.
Absolutely. And you see that. You see people who live on rivers or lakes or oceans
certainly, you know, actually going out and taking baths that way. For the most part, not all the time,
though. We'll talk about that. But, um, um, well, let's talk about that now because that's the,
that's the other reason you wouldn't have bathed. So let's say you did have a tub, but you may not
have bathed anyway for moral reasons. Oh, really a tub, but you may not have bathed anyway
for moral reasons. Oh really? So there was a period of time where the idea of getting naked
and immersing yourself in water was considered kind of unholy. Like why? The idea that just
it was, it could lead you to sin because you know you were naked and feels good being the water.
Yeah, I get this.
There's a lot of times I catch a glimpse of myself fresh out of the shower and think,
look at you, time to get some sin and done.
That is what I think.
There was a lot of association with the public bathhouses as part of why this happened and
those were seen as places of sin.
But just in general, there was this belief that once you were kind of exposed in some
urgent and water that the devil could get in.
And so, you know, there was also some health concern that like you were more susceptible
to disease if you were naked in water.
Because they're good like swimming.
We didn't have anything.
No, we didn't.
We thought water carried disease.
Well, which was sometimes true.
You see, I fear.
But that you would get it if you got in a bathtub.
And so there were some people who maybe even
could have had access to a tub, but didn't.
So it became like, for instance,
there were a lot of monasteries where the monks
recognized that they should clean themselves somewhat.
And so it would become part of the ritual
like twice a year you would take a bath.
And they would just like chain themselves up like wolf man.
Like listen, I might come to you,
wasn't fresh out of that bath,
I'm gonna say a lot of things.
I'm gonna say that I wanna be gluttonous.
I wanna eat too much.
I wanna stay up past my bedtime.
You can't let me do any of this, okay?
Just chain me down, wait till the impulse is passed.
Wait till I get dirty again.
Wait till I'm dirty again.
Is that all be fine?
Give me my robes and let's go pray together.
Another way that your life was probably better if you were royalty,
which is probably always true about everything, right?
Yeah, most everything.
But particularly hygiene is that you may have had a toilet of sorts if you were royalty.
They actually had like little rooms with kind of basically like a board with a hole in it
over a bigger hole.
That emptied into the moat.
Cool.
That's going to keep up those intruders.
So think about that.
That's what's in that moat.
You know, all the story books, you think they're alligators?
No. No. Much worse. they're alligators no much worse or or mean also they're very angry angry they're angry
about what's happening I hate people I'm angry about it in retrospect yeah of course
yeah of course um however if you if you weren't royal then for these purposes you
probably just dug a hole and then you buried it afterwards.
If you were the king, not only would you have a toilet,
you may have a royal potty chair, so to speak.
Like you can find pictures of these,
like these really nice ornate chairs with holes in them.
They look like bedside potty chairs
that you'd have if you were in the hospital
or you couldn't make it back and forth to the bathroom.
Only really nice, not made out of of like PVC pipe, like they're really
nice. But in addition to this, you would also have someone whose job it was to clean you up afterwards.
They were known as the groom of the stool. And their entire job was to wipe the kings,
but after he was done.
But you hate to see that answer on the career aptitude test, huh?
This is what you're best suited for.
Oh, man.
I was hoping for at least engineer.
No, in fact, you would love to see that.
It was a highly prized position because a lot of noblemen who start well and noblemen,
they were usually very young when they would be given this position, would ascend to being the King's like private steward.
That's like pretty much the definition
of a rags to reach the sale, huh?
Yeah.
Well, they would know the King's most intimate secret,
so they usually became the King's most trusted, you know.
I'd love it, Lee, that loves Khan.
Only I know how much he enjoys.
Khan. Okay. Please, we have to'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry least. There was no deodorant. Most people, if they didn't go
out to the bathroom and bury it outside, they would have a chamber pot under their bed where they
would pee and other things. And then of course, I think we all know where those things were emptied.
We've all heard those stories.
Sure. Into the river safely.
No, tossed out your window into the street.
That's what I meant.
Toilet paper proper didn't show up until about the 1880s.
Really the hero, this pretty good hotel.
So until then people are still using anything they can find,
including their hands.
Bed bugs were everywhere, despite the fact that beds
were consistently wiped down with kerosene. People were constantly covered with
bugs. A lot of this had to do with like, there were fatched roofs and
thatched like straw floors in a lot of places and so that didn't
particularly keep the bugs out, you know, especially over top. So it was not
uncommon for bugs to fall from the ceiling
and all kinds of manner of creatures to fall from the ceiling into your food, onto your
hair, onto whatever.
That's actually why canopy beds became so popular.
Oh, they're protecting you from all the bugs that could fall on you at night.
The streets were filled with animal dogs.
Takes some of the romance out of them.
Yes, I know.
They have a whole new look now.
Most people had lice.
No one did much of anything to their teeth.
And we won't even talk about women and menstrual care because that's a whole, we already did
a whole episode on that.
But it was no fun either.
Fair enough.
In the 19th century, bathing habits may have been even worse if you can believe it.
I mean, this is really the time period where people are just never in water.
But, we do have toilet paper by now.
So we start to see chamber pots fade away a little bit and even deodorant now exists.
So as a culture, we're getting a little less smelly.
And then as we move into the 20th century, we have the germ theory of disease.
We start to understand bacteria.
We start a symbol wise who we have referenced many times and never really talked about.
We will.
We will.
But we start to wash our hands a little more.
We start bathing a little more regularly.
And then, you know, we start to see hygiene improving at this point.
It also helps when we start changing houses to like wood and concrete and stuff like that.
Sure.
So they, you know, buzzed out constantly coming in your house.
A couple interesting facts.
One is that most people, in the time period when you would only bathe once a year, or twice
a year maybe, most people used to bathe in May.
I don't know why that was the bathing month, but May was the most popular month for bats,
which is why June became the wedding month.
Oh, because you weren't that smelly yet.
Right, you're so relatively clean.
It's also part of why brides carry flowers.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
Yeah, to cover up what ever smell they may have.
You're so full of trivia, and I'm really enjoying the tribute on this episode.
Many people would only have had four outfits. They would wear one a season.
This contributed to the overall. Yeah, stinkingness. Stinkingness.
Um, and anytime you see a portrait of someone with a really elaborate wig,
you should probably think about all the lice that's hiding in there.
I'd rather not. Thanks.
You know, it's interesting now. We're kind of moving away. I mean obviously most people
Bayes and wash their hands and we have toilet paper and plumbing and you know, we understand the importance of clean water and all those things
But there's a movement slightly away from hygiene now as the idea that we got too
Hyper-sensitive about germs. I think we've kind of alluded to this before,
but that we all have like a normal bacterial population that lives in us, our bacterial flora,
that, you know, I've mentioned this before, I think you're more bacteria than human.
You have more bacterial cells than humans, so.
Another so happy to return to this fact, so I'll be here that again.
And that's important, you need those bacteria. They do all kinds of things for you,
and they protect you from worse bacteria,
which is why, you know, like,
Jamie Lee Curtis is telling you to eat yogurt.
From my poops.
Yes, exactly.
That's where probiotics came from.
And the hygiene hypothesis, again,
I think we've talked about this,
were like, if you're too clean,
then maybe that's where we get allergies and asthma. This is also why people tell you to, we didn't really talk about this, we're like, if you're too clean, then maybe that's where we get allergies and asthma.
This is also why people tell you to,
we didn't really talk about this to eat honey for allergies.
The idea that you're exposing yourself
through like local honey, so if it's honey from your area,
you're exposing yourself through the honey
to like local allergens and things,
and then you're less likely to develop allergies,
or you're less likely to suffer from allergies to them.
Oh, um, fascinating.
Yeah, so I don't know.
Maybe we got too carried away.
Maybe we're too clean.
You know what?
I'm happy we were at, maybe we could scale back a little bit,
but I don't need to, I don't need, I just know
I'd be a groom of the stool.
I just know me.
That's where I would end up.
I don't need to return to those days.
Sid, we're going to be just like a couple of weeks from now.
We're going to be in the Pacific Northwest.
That's right.
Portland Vancouver and Seattle, not in that order.
Portland Seattle Vancouver is the order.
Portland sold out, sorry about that, but we still do have tickets, although they're going
pretty fast.
They're starting to pay up because the shows are getting fairly close.
Tickets are still available for Seattle. These are the shows with my brother,
my brother, me, the prize podcast with my brothers. So the address to get those tickets is bit.ly4dslashmbmbmcaddle.
And bit.ly4dslashvanmbam. So tickets are like 20 bucks, I think, something like that. And we'll be
there. We're selling some cool new posters and
Stuff like that, but it's gonna be fun. So if you could come out to those shows. We'd love to see you
Yeah, and we're bringing along my little sister Riley
Mm-hmm, and Chuck's jokes. She'll be there. Yeah
They probably was here. Hopefully she'll be asleep if she does not asleep yet. We have failed this parents
Which is possible
Thank you to the taxpayer's for this user songines is the intro and outro of our program.
You should go patronize them, just Google them, go buy all their stuff.
And thanks to the MaxFun Network for having us on. I want to tell you about a new show
that's called Can I Pet your Dog? It's Pat Dogs, first episode feature.
That's a good title, first episode about dogs. First episode features
our buddy Lynn Manuel Miranda,
creator of the huge smash,
probably hit Hamilton talking about his dog Toby,
and it's produced by Brother Travis.
So that's a good show when you should listen to it.
And that's gonna do for us, Sid.
Yeah, and make sure and wish Charlie happy birthday
in your thoughts.
And I, as you're falling asleep,
send out those good birthday vibes to Charlie
Till next Wednesday I'm just a macro
I'm a Sydney macro and as always don't
draw a hole in your head
Alright! Maximumfund.org
Comedy and Culture, Artistone
Listener Supported