Episode 183 - CLASSIC: It's a Wash!

Thanks for sticking with us during this semi-hiatus, y’all. We’re regrouping, and new things will be coming your way very soon! In this episode from the archives, we decided to clean up their act and take a look at the history of bathing and hygiene. We’re dipping our toes into Roman baths, sweating through Finnish and Russian saunas, discussing the shrewd marketing behind the “Halitosis Effect,” and more. Plus, what even IS soap, anyway?

• A natural history of hygiene (Canadian Journal of Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology)

• Evidence that disgust evolved to protect from risk of disease (Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences)

• The First Soap - The first recorded evidence of soap making (Soap History)

• Out of the Vapors: A Social and Architectural History of Bathhouse Row

• More Than a Bath: An Examination of Japanese Bathing Culture (Claremont Colleges)

• Self-Reflection in the Tub: Japanese Bathing Culture, Identity, and Cultural Nationalism (Asia Pacific Perspectives)

• Dip into the history of the Japanese 'system bath' (Japan Times)

• Networking Naked With Finland's Diplomatic Sauna Society (The Atlantic)

• A `working' bath: Finland's answer to negotiations. SAUNA DIPLOMACY (Christian Science Monitor)

• The Standard Guide to Global Bathing Cultures (Standard Hotels)

• The History and Science Behind Your Terrible Breath (Smithsonian)

• Fighting bad breath -- a battle through centuries (Los Angeles Times)

• Who invented the toothbrush and when was it invented? (Library of Congress)

Image: Ad for Soapine, c. 1900, indicating that it is made from whale oil. Public domain-From the digital collections of the Miami University Libraries.