Hygiene In Medieval Times

Today, people are so privileged and take most things for granted. The Middle Ages were difficult times filled with unsanitary people and deadly diseases killing thousands of people. Today we are able to have general hygiene essentials that would would of helped tremendously back then. We are privileged enough to have soap and bathrooms, and even a dentist. There has been major advancements in hygiene since the Medieval Times.
After the Black Death, Medieval people started looking for a link between hygiene and health. Before that, their general hygiene was so awful everywhere you went the smell was repulsive. Sadly, Old Spice and Secret were not around years ago. People of Medieval times had no choice but to come up with something else. Nosegays,
Womens menstruation was thought to be a sickness and a punishment from God for Eve’s sin. Menstruation was an extremely misunderstood subject. Isidore of Seville from Pliny said that menstrual blood was responsible for giving dog rabies, preventing seeds from growing, making trees lose their fruit, and cause iron to rust. Aristotle believed that menstrual women’s gaze at a mirror could darken it; Albertus Magnus gave a more scientific explanation to Aristotle’s belief saying that the eye was a passive organ that receives menstrual blood, which caused an alteration in the air that which a harmful vapor flowed to the mirror. Women did not menstruate as much as women do today but, the cramps were just as bad for the Medieval women. Herbs such as thyme and woodruff asperula odorata were used for the pain and nausea, and skin troubles. Also, the people of the Middle Ages believed that acorns would help stop menstruation. Older women who were no longer menstruating were said to be able to poison babies by staring at them in their candles; poorer women, who mostly ate hard to digest foods were the most poisonous. Childbirth is not so pleasant, even today, however, imagine how it was a thousand years ago. A thousand years ago, there were not any pain killers or epidurals. Instead they drank a mixture of oil and vinegar and to ease a woman's pain, eagle feces was