The Ancient Greeks followed health programmes, while for medieval Europeans the fault for sickness was all in the stars. Fiona Adams leafs through past prescriptions with some fun facts on health and beauty through the ages
As we have themed our October issues around the weighty subject of education, I thought that this month, rather than regale you with the latest development in beauty technology, I would instead shoot a backward glance to see how perceptions of beauty, health and hygiene have evolved.
As you can imagine, the centuries have wrought many a change. Remarkably, however, some innovations, ingredients and beliefs have stood the test of time...
According to historian Bettany Hughes, the Ancient Greeks considered a beautiful body direct evidence of a beautiful mind. They even invented a phrase to describe it: kalos kagathos, meaning lovely to look at and thus demonstrably of noble thought. Mirrors were often buried with the dead and beauty was prized in both men and women. Young men would spend hours honing their physique, while female attraction was judged at the Olympics. Redheads were considered particularly special.
Many rich Greeks followed a programme for health, which included keeping themselves at an even temperature, eating properly, cleaning their teeth and keeping fit. The first hospital is thought to have been Asklepion on the island of Kos.
Exhibitions of artefacts from Pompeii show that, even in Roman times, women were already agonizing over how they looked. Pale skin was the order of the day, particularly amongst the idle rich who could afford to stay shaded, probably by their slaves. Pigments like cinnabar were applied to lips and cheeks to stain them and body hair was removed (numerous tweezers were found in the ruins). Perfumes were made from flowers, such as violets, roses, lavender, jasmine and bergamot, while elaborate curled hairstyles and plaits were in vogue. Olive oil was another Roman favourite, used as a cleanser, massage oil and skin softener, and honey was also a popular ingredient in face masks.
While the Ancient Greeks and Romans had been quite forward-thinking in their approach to health and beauty, the same could not be said for the inhabitants of medieval Europe. While there were famous medical schools at the universities of Montpellier, Bologna and Salerno, lectures on anatomy were very basic, with the Church forbidding the dissection of human bodies. Surgeons were often butchers or barbers; knowledge of germs was non-existent, so instruments went unsterilised. Disease was attributed to demons, sin, bad smells and the stars. Guy de Chauliac, personal physician to three 14th century popes, blamed the Black Death not on rats or overcrowding, but on a conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter and Mars.
By Tudor times, lead had long been a popular compound for lightening skin, but its most famous proponent was probably Elizabeth I, considered – thanks to portraits such as this one in the Collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London – a great beauty. White lead was combined with vinegar and applied to the face. As a poison, however, it eventually ruined the skin or killed the user.
Elizabeth was also a great consumer of a recently discovered treat: sugar. Soon she had lost most of her teeth and stuffed her mouth with cloth to try to disguise the gaps.
Smallpox, dysentery, the sweating sickness and pneumonia were all common, and while the Tudors did try to keep themselves clean – though not necessarily with baths – their towns and villages were not. Sewers ran down the streets, wells were contaminated, rotting food and vermin were commonplace. As for doctors, they still believed that illness arose when the body’s ‘humours’ – blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile – were not balanced.
And so to the Victorians, responsible for such innovations as vaccinations against smallpox and specialist hospitals. Despite these advances, childhood diseases such as measles, mumps, diphtheria and scarlet fever were rife, going through middle- and upper-class nurseries like wildfire. Few well-born ladies breastfed their children, so their offspring’s immunity was often compromised. Cosmetics were frowned upon, viewed as the preserve of actresses and prostitutes, though most women did protect their faces from the sun to keep a pale complexion. Pond’s cream – still a popular product today – was created in New York in 1846.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
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