In which medieval Europeans know honey is just the thing to treat an arrow stuck in your face. A great literary figure, almost Aristotelian in his classification of the natural world, once said, “The only reason for being a bee that I know of is making honey…And the only reason for making honey is so … Read More
Hygiene
I Love That Dirty Water
Wherein the people of Georgian England know a clean baby is a slimy baby. It’s time for my not-so-celebrated annual article about bathing! In reality, it would be time in about two months, but at the rate at which I’m putting out articles these days there’s no guarantee the next one will come out by … Read More
An Hour in the Shower
Wherein the ancient Egyptians knew King Tut could only get funky by spending eternity being squeaky clean. My first article for this blog was about the sudsy ins-and-outs of medieval baths, so it’s only fitting that I mark the first anniversary of the site with another article about bathing (okay, it’s less a case of … Read More
Take My Breath Away
Wherein the ancient Chinese know nothing is as breathtaking as elephant bile oral care products. Bad breath—comics and cartoons feature a multitude of ways to demonstrate the painful effect halitosis can have on others: flowers shriveling and dying as a person breathes on them; faces puckering as people inhale the stench; even stink fumes gushing … Read More
