Tub hopping
THE DIRT ON CLEAN: An Unsanitized History
By Katherine Ashenburg
368 pp. North Point Press $35.00
Reviewed by Ruth Douillette
We are a society obsessed with cleanliness.
Did you shower today? Slather on creams and lotions? Splash on a scent? Brush, floss, freshen your breath? Stick a Q-tip in your ear? Shave? Most likely you did some of the above, if not all.
Just how did twenty-first century Americans get to the point where bathrooms have become “the inner sanctum, the place where hedonism, narcissism, over-the-top luxury and hygienic scrupulosity meet?” Katherine Ashenburg answers the question in The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History.
Ashenburg’s comprehensive, well-researched account moves chronologically from tub to tub, describing the culture of cleanliness in the Western world from 1700 B.C., when bathtubs first appeared, to the intimate bathing practices of Greek and Roman social baths up to the present day.
No dry history this—we soak in a pool of information, learning as much of the cultural rationale for cleanliness, or not, as we do the actual bath practices we read about in each era.
Ashenburg carries off the steamiest and smelliest of topics with aplomb and a charming touch of humor. She discusses cleanliness of delicate parts without flinching, blushing, or grimacing, though her readers might.
She stays in the background and lets her prodigious research speak for itself, occasionally inserting commentary that provides a delightful wry analysis or an ironic aside. Coupled with illustrations and pithy quotes—“To cure the goat-like stench of armpits, it is useful to press and rub the skin with a compound of roses.” Sixteenth-century French recipe—the book educates and entertains.
Whatever the era, the reasons for washing remain unchanged: to make oneself more attractive, more comfortable, and to restore or promote health—except for the two hundred years when immersing the entire naked body in water was considered dangerous.
From the days when several public baths a day were the norm, when servants scraped skin clean with metal strigils, and rubbed the body with fragrant oils, emerged the dry ages, an odorous period when immersing the body in water was looked upon with “terror and surprize.”
This was a time when the body was thought to consist of humours, which had to be preserved. The pores of the body needed to be sealed—sweat and dirt did the trick—to prevent the entrance of water, which would disrupt the internal mix. That the external body was a smelly shambles mattered not; intact humours kept the body healthy.
Linen undergarments absorbed sweat, making them a suitable substitute for bathing—although it was imperative to wash the fingers of the hand one ate with after the meal. In 1626 a Parisian architect declared with confidence, “We can do without baths, because our usage of linen, which today serves to keep the body clean more conveniently than the baths and vapour baths the ancients could do.” These were also the days when chamber pots were emptied in the streets at eleven every night.
The bathing record of King Louis XIII of France is grimace-inducing: “At six weeks, his head was massaged. At seven weeks, his abundant cradle cap was rubbed with butter and almond oil. The baby's hair was not combed until he was nine months old. At the age of five, his legs were washed for the first time, in tepid water. He had his first bath at the ripe age of almost seven.”
Today’s bathers, for whom the bath is a solitary occasion, will find the days when “ladies descended into the various pools led by two male escorts who cleared the way” to be odd and somewhat surreal.
“Half a century earlier,” Ashenburg writes, “bathers of both sexes would have been naked, but by the 1680s a gentlewoman wore a large gown of stiff yellow canvas. Gentleman wore trousers and waistcoats made of the same material. After walking a bit . . . socializing with acquaintances and peering at the ill being showered with scalding water . . . the bather would make a slow-motion exit.”
The historical information is enlightening and fascinating, but the final chapter from 1950 to the present is particularly interesting and relevant. We’re given a unique opportunity to step back and see ourselves clearly; such enlightenment inspires an incredulous shake of the head.
Ashenburg says, “We have come to expect that the people we encounter . . . are showered, mouthwashed and deodorized as much as possible, with the goal of eradicating all natural smells. Then, onto their odourless bodies, they import carefully chosen scents.”
Citing current research, she says we might be over-cleaning ourselves. Our obsession with germs, and the products we use to control them, may cause the “baffling rise in asthma and other allergies.” While there is both contrary and corroborating evidence for this “hygiene hypothesis,” it appears that we need “dirty triggers” to spur the immune system into action, and that “unhygienic contact and infection might prevent the development of allergies.”
She ends with a disquieting glimpse into the future of cleanliness, which, she says, “is a mystery, dependent as it always is on resources as well as mentality. Nothing, for example, would change our bathing habits more quickly and thoroughly than a serious water shortage.”
While resources and mentality align to make us the cleanest people in history, readers will enjoy the voyeuristic peek into the baths of old while anticipating an obsessively long, hot shower.
Ruth Douillette is an associate editor of The Internet Review of Books.
See her blog at Upstream and Down~.
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