5 ms·

Isn’t it widely recorded that handwashing only came to be a norm mid-1800s? If doctors weren’t washing theirs at the time, I have a hard time believing peasants

Isn’t it widely recorded that handwashing only came to be a norm mid-1800s? If doctors weren’t washing theirs at the time, I have a hard time believing peasants would be doing so in the 1200s.

sorokod 3y ago
They might be doing so as to not soil their clothes.
_ea1k 3y ago
Handwashing has a long history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handwashing_in_Judaism#:~:text=The%20Talmud%20used%20the%20requirement,asmachta%20(a%20Biblical%20hint%2C%20rather https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handwashing_in_Judaism#:~:text...
wongarsu 3y ago
It isn't unheard of. Jesus refused to wash his hands before eating in Mark 7:1-6, and some people were not happy about that: The Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered to Him after they came from Jerusalem, and saw that some of His disciples were eating their bread with unholy hands, that is, unwashed. (For the Pharisees and all the other Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thereby holding firmly to the tradition of the elders; and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they completely cleanse themselves; and there are many other things which they have received as traditions to firmly hold, such as the washing of cups, pitchers, and copper pots.) And the Pharisees and the scribes asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not walk in accordance with the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with unholy hands?” But He said to them, “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written:
- caminante 3y ago
  In summary, Jesus got called out for not washing, and then switched to an ad hominem instead of acknowledging? edit: See gjsman-1000's comment below for the missing context. It wasn't a shaming for lack of functional sanitation.
  - op00to 3y ago
    He was like, making a point, man!
  - wongarsu 3y ago
    God and Jesus, as portrait in the bible, are not flawless creatures. Even if some people really want them to be.
    - The_Colonel 3y ago
      That's an understatement. Especially in the Old Testament, God is outright evil in some places.
  - otabdeveloper4 3y ago
    No, his disciples were called out. (It was stated so in plain language, you'd have to be arguing in bad faith to claim otherwise.)
    - caminante 3y ago
      > And [x] asked [jesus], “Why do Your disciples not walk in accordance with the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with unholy hands?” But [jesus] said to [x], “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites [x] = Pharisees and the scribes = "hypocrites", right? Help me understand what I'm missing.
      - gjsman-1000 3y ago
        You are missing the cultural significance of the washing of hands. It was not meant to be about sanitation (or, any culture could have that). 1. The handwashing rule was invented by the Pharisees, and was not a part of Jewish law. 2. It was also not a tradition for sanitation, but was created to serve a ritualistic role to show they were ritually purified. 3. Because it was just a made up rule God did not give, and it was meant for the ritualistic appearance of purity, it is obviously hypocritical if the priest has no concern about their internal state (sin and whatnot). 4. In which case, it would be much less hypocritical if they either said it was for sanitation; or that it was a symbol while still admitting their unworthiness before God. 5. This is why Jesus elsewhere calls them “whitewashed graves.”
enkid 3y ago
That's specifically about doctors washing their hands to prevent disease. Plenty of cultures had traditions of washing before that
- oldgradstudent 3y ago
  > That's specifically about doctors washing their hands to prevent disease. Not prevention of disease, but preventing its spread. Doctors were a common transmission vector of infectious disease across history.
  - enkid 3y ago
    I don't see a meaningful distinction between "preventing disease" and "preventing spread of disease" in this context given we're talking about pathogens.
    - sornaensis 3y ago
      The doctor isnt the one in danger dying or getting sick, that seems like a big distinction and probably the reason people were skeptical of it.
op00to 3y ago
Jewish people have a long history of laws involving hand washing. I’d be surprised if most cultures at the time didn’t have rituals or laws around hand washing!
Ekaros 3y ago
I would guess there is varying levels of dirtiness. I think it is reasonable to expect people to clean their hands if they have things like soil or sooth on them. As those are slightly annoying to eat. On other hand if your hands are relatively clean, I would not expect particular attention put in on cleaning them again.
balderdash 3y ago
I suspect one interpretation of washing your hands is simply with water to get the visible dirt of your hands - hardly anti-microbial
brokenkebaby 3y ago
>Isn’t it widely recorded that handwashing only came to be a norm mid-1800s? You're mixing up two completely different modes of washing. The one related to medicine in XIX is about washing hands in lime solution. Pop science magazines always miss this part to make it feel more sensational I guess. Washing visibly dirty hands (e.g. with soil, grease, or blood), often using sand as an abrasive cleaner, and ashes to dissolve fat, or (depending on one's wealth) a real soap was a norm for a very long time before. [Edit: added the last para]
- adrian_b 3y ago
  Actually exactly what was used for washing the hands and the body in the Ancient World is a bit of a mystery, I have never seen an adequate discussion of this. In the Ancient World, at least from almost 4000 years ago, i.e. when the Epic of Gilgamesh was written, until less than 2000 years ago, by the time of Pliny the Elder, the main use of the vegetable oils, including of oils like sesame oil or olive oil, was not as food, but for body massage, preferably mixed with perfumes. Starting with the Epic of Gilgamesh, but also in many later literary works, until in the early Roman Empire, the greatest pleasures for civilized people were described as eating bread, drinking beer or wine and being anointed with vegetable oil. While it must have been pleasant to be smeared with oil, all good things come to an end. Greasy hands or greasy clothes are undesirable, so they must have had some means to wash the abundant oil from their bodies, at a time when they did not have soap. The most likely method for removing the oil from the skin is that they have used lye made from plant ashes (i.e. potassium carbonate) or from mineral natron (sodium carbonate). However, at least for a modern sensitive skin such harsh washing methods seem rather unpleasant, which seems inconsistent with the pleasure associated by the ancients with anointing.
  - DonaldFisk 3y ago
    > While it must have been pleasant to be smeared with oil, all good things come to an end. Greasy hands or greasy clothes are undesirable, so they must have had some means to wash the abundant oil from their bodies, at a time when they did not have soap. They scraped it off: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strigil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strigil
adrian_b 3y ago
Cato the Elder, writing about 2200 years ago, begins his recipe for making bread like this: "Manus mortariumque bene lavato" which means "Wash well your hands and the bowl in which you will knead the dough!" so the ancient Romans were well aware about the benefits of washing the hands, at least when preparing food.
- retrac 3y ago
  This is a common confusion with the ancients' lack of germ theory. It doesn't mean they weren't aware of the association between filth, excrement, and the concept of contamination or unhealthy influence. Miasma theory goes back to at least Hippocrates, and it was thought that bad smells could cause illness. That decay begets decay is obvious. They were just very fuzzy on the mechanism.
  - duskwuff 3y ago
    Besides, you don't need to specifically know that filth causes disease to find it offensive, and to be innately repulsed by the idea that your food has been near it. Hygenic behavior is, to some degree, instinctive.
  - adrian_b 3y ago
    Actually Varro, more than 2000 years ago, describes a theory of infectious diseases that are caused by microbes that are invisible because they are too small ("bestiolae") and which is formulated very similarly to how we describe such diseases today. Perhaps Varro has taken his theory from some lost work of a Greek philosopher, though it is not impossible that he has formulated the theory himself, because his work includes a few other original passages that look very modern, e.g. when he explains how any theory should be improved by new experimental results. In any case, this is another example of the fact that in the Ancient World for many things there were multiple competing theories, one of which was actually the modern correct theory. However the correct theory typically remained only a minority view, because they could not prove experimentally which is the right theory, so they only debated which is the more plausible of them and the more convincing orator was who won, even when he supported the theory which is now known to be wrong.

Isn’t it widely recorded that handwashing only came to be a norm mid-1800s? If doctors weren’t washing theirs at the time, I have a hard time believing peasants would be doing so in the 1200s.

sorokod 3y ago

They might be doing so as to not soil their clothes.

_ea1k 3y ago

Handwashing has a long history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handwashing_in_Judaism#:~:text=The%20Talmud%20used%20the%20requirement,asmachta%20(a%20Biblical%20hint%2C%20rather https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handwashing_in_Judaism#:~:text...

wongarsu 3y ago

It isn't unheard of. Jesus refused to wash his hands before eating in Mark 7:1-6, and some people were not happy about that: The Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered to Him after they came from Jerusalem, and saw that some of His disciples were eating their bread with unholy hands, that is, unwashed. (For the Pharisees and all the other Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thereby holding firmly to the tradition of the elders; and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they completely cleanse themselves; and there are many other things which they have received as traditions to firmly hold, such as the washing of cups, pitchers, and copper pots.) And the Pharisees and the scribes asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not walk in accordance with the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with unholy hands?” But He said to them, “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written:

caminante 3y ago
In summary, Jesus got called out for not washing, and then switched to an ad hominem instead of acknowledging? edit: See gjsman-1000's comment below for the missing context. It wasn't a shaming for lack of functional sanitation.
- op00to 3y ago
  He was like, making a point, man!
- wongarsu 3y ago
  God and Jesus, as portrait in the bible, are not flawless creatures. Even if some people really want them to be.
  - The_Colonel 3y ago
    That's an understatement. Especially in the Old Testament, God is outright evil in some places.
- otabdeveloper4 3y ago
  No, his disciples were called out. (It was stated so in plain language, you'd have to be arguing in bad faith to claim otherwise.)
  - caminante 3y ago
    > And [x] asked [jesus], “Why do Your disciples not walk in accordance with the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with unholy hands?” But [jesus] said to [x], “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites [x] = Pharisees and the scribes = "hypocrites", right? Help me understand what I'm missing.
    - gjsman-1000 3y ago
      You are missing the cultural significance of the washing of hands. It was not meant to be about sanitation (or, any culture could have that). 1. The handwashing rule was invented by the Pharisees, and was not a part of Jewish law. 2. It was also not a tradition for sanitation, but was created to serve a ritualistic role to show they were ritually purified. 3. Because it was just a made up rule God did not give, and it was meant for the ritualistic appearance of purity, it is obviously hypocritical if the priest has no concern about their internal state (sin and whatnot). 4. In which case, it would be much less hypocritical if they either said it was for sanitation; or that it was a symbol while still admitting their unworthiness before God. 5. This is why Jesus elsewhere calls them “whitewashed graves.”

enkid 3y ago

That's specifically about doctors washing their hands to prevent disease. Plenty of cultures had traditions of washing before that

oldgradstudent 3y ago
> That's specifically about doctors washing their hands to prevent disease. Not prevention of disease, but preventing its spread. Doctors were a common transmission vector of infectious disease across history.
- enkid 3y ago
  I don't see a meaningful distinction between "preventing disease" and "preventing spread of disease" in this context given we're talking about pathogens.
  - sornaensis 3y ago
    The doctor isnt the one in danger dying or getting sick, that seems like a big distinction and probably the reason people were skeptical of it.

op00to 3y ago

Jewish people have a long history of laws involving hand washing. I’d be surprised if most cultures at the time didn’t have rituals or laws around hand washing!

Ekaros 3y ago

I would guess there is varying levels of dirtiness. I think it is reasonable to expect people to clean their hands if they have things like soil or sooth on them. As those are slightly annoying to eat. On other hand if your hands are relatively clean, I would not expect particular attention put in on cleaning them again.

balderdash 3y ago

I suspect one interpretation of washing your hands is simply with water to get the visible dirt of your hands - hardly anti-microbial

brokenkebaby 3y ago

>Isn’t it widely recorded that handwashing only came to be a norm mid-1800s? You're mixing up two completely different modes of washing. The one related to medicine in XIX is about washing hands in lime solution. Pop science magazines always miss this part to make it feel more sensational I guess. Washing visibly dirty hands (e.g. with soil, grease, or blood), often using sand as an abrasive cleaner, and ashes to dissolve fat, or (depending on one's wealth) a real soap was a norm for a very long time before. [Edit: added the last para]

adrian_b 3y ago
Actually exactly what was used for washing the hands and the body in the Ancient World is a bit of a mystery, I have never seen an adequate discussion of this. In the Ancient World, at least from almost 4000 years ago, i.e. when the Epic of Gilgamesh was written, until less than 2000 years ago, by the time of Pliny the Elder, the main use of the vegetable oils, including of oils like sesame oil or olive oil, was not as food, but for body massage, preferably mixed with perfumes. Starting with the Epic of Gilgamesh, but also in many later literary works, until in the early Roman Empire, the greatest pleasures for civilized people were described as eating bread, drinking beer or wine and being anointed with vegetable oil. While it must have been pleasant to be smeared with oil, all good things come to an end. Greasy hands or greasy clothes are undesirable, so they must have had some means to wash the abundant oil from their bodies, at a time when they did not have soap. The most likely method for removing the oil from the skin is that they have used lye made from plant ashes (i.e. potassium carbonate) or from mineral natron (sodium carbonate). However, at least for a modern sensitive skin such harsh washing methods seem rather unpleasant, which seems inconsistent with the pleasure associated by the ancients with anointing.
- DonaldFisk 3y ago
  > While it must have been pleasant to be smeared with oil, all good things come to an end. Greasy hands or greasy clothes are undesirable, so they must have had some means to wash the abundant oil from their bodies, at a time when they did not have soap. They scraped it off: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strigil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strigil

adrian_b 3y ago

Cato the Elder, writing about 2200 years ago, begins his recipe for making bread like this: "Manus mortariumque bene lavato" which means "Wash well your hands and the bowl in which you will knead the dough!" so the ancient Romans were well aware about the benefits of washing the hands, at least when preparing food.

retrac 3y ago
This is a common confusion with the ancients' lack of germ theory. It doesn't mean they weren't aware of the association between filth, excrement, and the concept of contamination or unhealthy influence. Miasma theory goes back to at least Hippocrates, and it was thought that bad smells could cause illness. That decay begets decay is obvious. They were just very fuzzy on the mechanism.
- duskwuff 3y ago
  Besides, you don't need to specifically know that filth causes disease to find it offensive, and to be innately repulsed by the idea that your food has been near it. Hygenic behavior is, to some degree, instinctive.
- adrian_b 3y ago
  Actually Varro, more than 2000 years ago, describes a theory of infectious diseases that are caused by microbes that are invisible because they are too small ("bestiolae") and which is formulated very similarly to how we describe such diseases today. Perhaps Varro has taken his theory from some lost work of a Greek philosopher, though it is not impossible that he has formulated the theory himself, because his work includes a few other original passages that look very modern, e.g. when he explains how any theory should be improved by new experimental results. In any case, this is another example of the fact that in the Ancient World for many things there were multiple competing theories, one of which was actually the modern correct theory. However the correct theory typically remained only a minority view, because they could not prove experimentally which is the right theory, so they only debated which is the more plausible of them and the more convincing orator was who won, even when he supported the theory which is now known to be wrong.