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The
Study of Hygiene in Canada
How do we study personal hygiene
in Canada before the 1830s? There aren’t many illustrations or written
accounts from this early period to shed light on the subject.
As a result, we must instead look at
how grooming and personal hygiene were handled during the same period
in France and England: the two countries which had the most influence
on Canada at the time. We can also study documents relating to the
colonial period — including lists of goods imported from Europe,
legal documents such as trial proceedings, newspapers, and inventories
taken after death in lieu of an actual will. Death inventories are
particularly useful, because they suggest the social status of the
deceased, and list the objects they possessed. The other documents
only tell us that the objects existed in the country, without providing
us with details on the kinds of people who used them.
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The
Situtation in Europe
From the Middle Ages to the end of the eighteenth century, personal
grooming in Europe was "dry", meaning that water was not
usually part of the process. Cleanliness was ensured instead by
the use of cosmetics and frequent changes of clothing. As in many
other areas, there were also important differences between the upper
classes and the general population.
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The
General Population
Most people were content with washing their hands and face from
time to time with water. Although they occasionally changed their
shirts, most were also used to sleeping in clothing still damp with
the sweat of the day's labours. They did this because the transmission
of disease was poorly understood at the time, and many were afraid
of water's effect on health. At the time, water was considered the
principal vehicle for cholera, the plague, and many other forms
of disease. These beliefs and habits changed little before the end
of the eighteenth century.
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The
Upper Classes
For the nobility and a portion of the middle classes, practices
related to personal hygiene were more complex. On one hand, they
cared for a greater number of body parts, including the hands, face,
hair, ears, teeth and, sometimes, the feet. On the other hand, appearance
and fashion were so important that they were often confused with
actual cleanliness.
Until the middle
of the eighteenth century, cleanliness among the upper classes was,
above all, a matter of appearance. The variety of fabrics and colours
had multiplied; wildly extravagant wigs were created; hair was powdered
and perfumed, rather than combed; and powders and pomades proliferated.
Certain cosmetics, designed to mask the strong odours of unclean
bodies, also contained toxic substances such as white lead, although
it was many years before their danger was recognized.
After 1750,
thanks to a radical reduction in epidemics and the evolution of
medical knowledge, water was gradually rehabilitated in the public
mind. Public baths, closed since the beginning of the seventeenth
century for reasons of public health and morality, were once more
in fashion. Cold water, it was said, invigorated the body, closed
the pores and stimulated the spirit, and it was increasingly used
for partial ablutions. These practices did not, however, touch more
than a portion of the upper classes documents bear witness
to the rarity, even among the nobility, of bathtubs, bidets and
washbasins.
Appearance remained
important, although clothing was no longer enough to ensure cleanliness,
as it had been in the past. Clothing now became more associated
with health than with social convention and fashion. Accordingly,
clothing was changed more often; fabrics were lighter; and wigs
which had been veritable nests of lice and fleas were
simplified. Strong perfumes were replaced with lighter versions
based on flowers, fruits and herbs, designed more to seduce than
to purify the air or camouflage unpleasant odours.
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The
Situation in Canada
Since water was both abundant and readily available in Canada
more so, at least, than in Western Europe people began wondering
if it couldn't be used more often in personal hygiene.
After a hard
day's labour under the hot sun, did early pioneers throw themselves
into the water to bathe or to refresh themselves? Did the coureurs
de bois and voyageurs bathe regularly in cold water
in imitation of Native peoples as was mistakenly reported
by the author Jean-Jacques Rousseau? No actual firsthand accounts
from the period exist to confirm or deny these possibilities.
To begin puzzling
out the answers to these questions, it is thus necessary to investigate
documents which may shed light on how, and with what, early French
settlers may have bathed.
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Swimming
and Public Baths
During the eighteenth century, some wealthy people possessed their
own baths. Most, however, washed and bathed in Canada's many lakes
and rivers. In general as in the United States, France and
England very few people took a full bath. This custom did
not become widespread until the beginning of the nineteenth century,
even among the nobility.
Around 1810-1820,
people in Europe began to frequent seaside resorts more and more.
The number of public baths multiplied in the principal cities of
North America, and bathtubs were introduced in the larger and grander
hotels of Canada and the United States, as well as in the homes
of the richest citizens. But the majority of the population remained
content to remove the worst of the dirt by wiping a cold, wet towel
across their faces and hands. Until the dressing table was expanded
to include a formal washstand after 1825, any old basin would serve
this purpose.
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