Ashenburg's carefully researched account of changing attitudes suggests that our own understanding of "clean" - complete with "hand-sanitisers" and "feminine hygiene" products - is no more rational than that of our ancestors. For the Roman in the 1st century, cleanliness involved a two-hour public soak, raking off sweat and oil with a metal scraper, followed by a final oiling. For the aristocratic 17th-century Frenchman, it meant changing his shirt daily, dabbling his hands in water and dousing himself with perfume to drown out his smell, not to mention that of others. For the modern, middle-class North American, "clean" probably means you shower and apply deodorant every day without fail. T oday's western definition of cleanliness might seem universal and timeless, yet it is not only a complicated cultural creation but a constant work in progress.
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