HISTORY OF THE BATH

Early man stank in self-defense. It is thought that he smelt bad so that predators would avoid him.











Emperor Nero's queen Poppaea travelled with a train of asses to be milked for her fresh bath. Cleopatra is also said to have enjoyed the skin-cleansing, softening and whitening properties of milk.

With the rise of Christianity, bathing became associated with the pagan and godless. The early Christians took particular pride in not washing. St. Agnes died unwashed at the age 13.

The Mohammedans washed as an integral part of their religious rituals. The Arabian Nights tells of wayside stalls selling orange flower water, rose water, willow water, violet and musk-scented water, so that baths could be perfumed as one chose.





Cleanliness was a high priority for the Romans. They were so horrified by the stench of the races they conquered they set about building bath houses wherever they set up colonies.

In the folklore of India and the Orient, the scented bath has been used to attract good spirits, new lovers and to obtain and preserve happiness.

According to medical theories of the Renaissance, the body was composed of our delicately "humours". The body's balance would be thrown if exposed to too much water. So bathing was frowned upon.




In addition, public bathhouses were little more than brothels. They also had a tendency to be infested with tadpoles and frogs. No wonder Henry VIII ordered all public baths to be closed in 1500. France followed in 1538. They remained closed in England for 200 years.

Mary Queen of Scots bathed in wine, which is possibly effective as a disinfectant to kill off the parasites that infested the seldom washed flesh of the Tudor times. Her cousin Queen Elizabeth I boasted of bathing "once a month whether she needed it or no".








By the 18th century, taking too many baths was thought to be a cause of infertility and a danger to beauty. Pregnant women were warned off them altogether.

But the craze for all things classical brought a return to exotic bathing. Following trendsetter Beau Brummell, the Prince Regent installed a bathroom at the new Brighton Pavilion where aristocrats soaked for hours in baths of hot water and milk.

After bathing became accepted, baths were still hard to fill until the advent of household plumbong towards the end of the 19th century. Even then, they used so much water that inventors searched for an equally invigorating alternative. The 1883 Berlin Hygene Exhibition introduced the first hot water shower.

Japanese men and women were unabashed about bathing together until the arrival of the American Commodore Matthew Perry in 1853.

The Americans decreed that men and women should bathe seperately. By 1870 a law to that effect had been passed.

The Japanese are still champion bathers, taking one bath to cleanse the body and a second bath to relax. They love to attain the condition of yudedako or "boiled octopus".