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The Body in Medicine 37
The prevalence of epidemics and plagues, and the miasma theory of
disease common throughout the Middle Ages and up to the emergence of
the scientific model of medicine, fed these notions of the body as permeable
and highly susceptible to invasion and attack by disease. There are
links between these notions and the still prevalent lay beliefs to do with
vulnerability to infections such as colds and influenza in contemporary
western societies. In one English study, for example, interviewees volunteered
the beliefs that susceptibility to colds was increased by such behaviours
as allowing one’s head to get wet, going outside after washing one’s
hair, getting one’s feet wet, going into a cold room after a hot bath and
getting caught in the rain, all of which were viewed as allowing the illness
to enter the body (Helman, 1978).
According to Vigarello (1988), notions about cleanliness changed from
the eighteenth century. In the late eighteenth century the first ideas about
bathing and its relationship to bodily hygiene became dominant. The idea
of the body as a machine influenced notions about the properties of cold
water as strengthening the body, to stimulate circulation and give firmness.
Books on health advocated regular cold baths for invigoration, and
as an ascetic practice of moral and physical toughening, ridding the body
of ‘softness’ and feebleness. Cleanliness changed from values of appearance
to notions of health, vigour, strength, austerity and morality. The
body, rather than being perceived as passive and vulnerable to external
forces as was the case in the Middle Ages, became endowed with endogenous
power and vitality which could be released by such activities as cold
bathing. Cleanliness induced by cold baths was viewed as the natural
state of the body; the use of powder, perfumes and scented oils was
decried as frivolous and artificial. The emphasis was now upon opening
the pores rather than keeping them covered, to ‘free the skin’ by removing
dirt, perspiration and oils which blocked the surface exits.
In the late eighteenth century, with the scientific discovery of microbes,
external signs of cleanliness were no longer considered sufficient
(Vigarello, 1988). These theories were legitimized by science; washing was
seen to rid the body of microbes and release it from the danger of rotting
matter. Microbes were viewed as ‘invisible monsters capable of breaking
down the body barriers’ (Vigarello, 1988: 204), all the more dangerous
because of their tininess. Appearances were viewed as deceptive, for
cleanliness and dirtiness were now invisible states, on the imperceptible
microscopic level: ‘The clearest water might contain innumerable bacilli,
the whitest skin might sustain every sort of bacteria’ (Vigarello, 1988: 203).
As a result, touching of parts of the body became prohibited, and frequent
washing was advocated to protect against invasion. New areas of the
body were named and appropriated by the discourse of cleanliness. To be
clean now meant to be free of bacteria, protozoa and viruses.
This notion of cleanliness predominated in the twentieth century as
medicine and science became ever more revered. One example is a
Canadian women’s magazine advertisement from the 1930s, which used