How did ordinary people take care of their basic hygiene, prior to 1900?

People didnt eat and drink as much back then....

How come most people don't think their shit smells?

And they used a lot of cologne.

Are you outta yer fuckin' mind?

people were unclean. there was more filth and less soap and water, so do the math. its pretty gross.

being clean is something people take for granted, and possibly the biggest advantage offered by the so called "first world."

They used outhouses and had pails in their rooms which they emptied later on into pits far away from the house.

Slovenly city dwellers would just fling the pails contents out the window.

As for soap, they made it. Literally.

People were smart back then.

They were Didu Everythings

The sheer horror of UK cities back in the 19th century was this;

All UK cities were open sewers, and had the additional horror of millions of tons of horseshit filling the streets!

OK, horseshit is good fertilizer for roses, but even so!

The Victorian engineers who built the sewage systems, and the sewage processing plants, with all the pumping machinery required, should be worshipped as Gods for what they did!

If you near a creek or spring, keeping clean wasnt that hard. Even if you had to draw water, most people had a basic galvanized metal tub they could fill with hot water from the stove.

I suppose if you lived in the city you were screwed.

They had communal Roman-type baths in cities. I saw a picture of people waiting to take a bath or shower in one of these places, taken in the 1890s. I think it was common to bathe once a week.

They stunk..everybody stunk... so they did not notice it....


Imagine the hot ass clothes everyone wore..no deo...bathing once a week..no air conditioning..even if you were clean, you stunk



Last Edited by Abi ~ on 09/13/2015 06:47 PM

The Romans had it pretty well sorted, with the Cloaca.

They used gravity-driven fresh water to take away all their pissings and dumpings.

Then, there followed tha Dark Ages, when human beings simply took a piss or a dump wherever.

In the Palace of Versailles, under the reign of the "Sun King" there were no toilets of any description.

Guests at the King's banquets retired behind window drapes to take a piss or a dump!

lol

Smelled like animals.

Some people in America are still living like that. This post reminded me of a story from the 80's and sure enough I found it - "Sugar Ditch Alley" in Mississippi, where (BLACK) residents with no plumbing throw feces out the back of their homes into the creek that runs behind them... because their primitive brains and lazy bodies can't conceive of digging a latrine trench away from the creek and covering up the crap with dirt afterwards. No, they'd rather deal with the flies and mosquitos and disease and dead animals...

[link to news.google.com (secure)]

...oh and I forgot... the STENCH...

Imagine the fuckin' smell, before decent WCs and sewage systems!

Modern day india is the same as pre 1900 America. Except in 1900 America they would use chamber pots. In modern day india they shit in the streets and rivers.

I drive to work past one of the biggest sewage processing plants in the UK, and it's generally not offensive, depending on the wind direction!

There are fucking houses and apartment buildings just across the road!

I give all credit to magnificent Victorian and Edwardian engineers, such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel!

Outhouses, even in the cities. Most of the USA never was like India.

Fuck off and die, please, cunt.

Yep. A modern fuk would puke if marilyn monroe tossed her panties at him.....

No, you seem to be a shill, so my offer still stands.

Bathing once a Week? ... Not with them France ones...

I'm grateful every day for being able to flush a toilet and having hot water on demand.

This by the way, is why many diseases were eradicated. Sanitation and hygiene (not vaccinations).

Precisely!

I love my bathroom, for its shower and WC.

But, the infrastructure below, that makes it all work, is the miracle of Western Civilization!

armpits croch face! not in that order.


you can keep yourself from smelling like shit without showers and bath's...

Wash it good!