I don’t have words immediately coming to mind for this. I think I’m going to lay down soon and see what others come up with. 
I don’t have words immediately coming to mind for this. I think I’m going to lay down soon and see what others come up with.
The Europeans weren’t as unhygienic as the hyperbole would have you believe, it’s more that they had diseases that jumped from domestic animals to humans that the natives had never encountered. The whole idea that medieval peasants were rolling in mud and manure all day isn’t accurate. They didn’t take baths often because baths are impractical. They took sponge baths. They didn’t wash their outer clothes but not many people wash their winter coat today, either. They’d wash the linen underclothes they wore under the outer garments. I mean, cleanliness to be desired, and other regions and cultures at the time were bigger on the hygiene thing, but they weren’t all looking like Pigpen from the Peanuts comics.
They were probably filthy as shit when they arrived, though. Months on a boat with a bunch of people and live animals. Just big wooden petri dishes at that point. Yuckers.
Fair, I was speaking too loosely They were very cleain. Using ash to make a strong simple soap they were simply riddled with pestilence while being surprisingly tidy
They still did some really gross things, like centuries of medical practitioners deciding hand washing was optional, and dying of dysentery constantly whenever they gathered into armies.
It is interesting how the people in the industrial era were probably dirtier and in worse health than their medieval forebears because they were all clustered in cities drinking poo water and breathing fumes and smog which impacted respiratory health so tuberculosis was having a dance party in everyone’s lungs.
wish i could be rollin in mud