Re:Iranian man who didn't wash for half a century dies at 94
by tsol on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @03:26PM
(#33335021)
That's mostly hygiene. Bad hygiene is why cities are often associated with disease-- cities are often full of unhygienic practices that allow bacteria and virii to fester. They still didn't understand seizures, or cancer-- ie they were good at one dimension among many that exist in illnesses.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Re:Iranian man who didn't wash for half a century dies at 94
by somenameforme on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @12:13AM
(#33339734)
In Ancient Greece one of my favorite little tales is a toilet one. Toilet paper, of course, did not exist. And so the Greeks used sponges, often on a short stick. And these sponges would be cleaned by swirling them about in as bit of water, or for the fancy toilets - a bit of vinegar. They had communal butt brushes in other words.
And there are many other issues of similar effect. Many of the hygienic practices that we now generally believe are intuitive, were anything but. For instance the idea that doctors should wash their hands before examining patients or even doing surgery was simply unknown all the way up until the 19th century [1]. Incidentally, while a basic germ theory was proposed in the 16th century, it wasn't until the 19th that it would come to be accepted as valid.
[1] - https://www.history.com/news/hand-washing-disease-infection