Hygiene

Modern humans spend a great deal of time and money on products and processes for personal hygiene. Every piece of our bodies has some custom product designed to make it smell, look and feel more appealing than it does before rising. And I find this to be a large botheration.

I hate hygiene. I hate the time investment and the monetary outlay. The mechanics of readying myself to be presentable according to societal standards are silly. Showering, moisturizing, makeup, hair care, deodarizing, dental polishing...day in and day out. It seems rather a lot of work to simply prepare a single body to meet and greet the day. But, this was not always the case...

Early man had no hygiene. Lucky them. They did not wash and braid the hair; apply lotions and potions to every nook and cranny...and it worked. First, it was democratic. Everyone was in the same boat. No one had extra dollars to spend on the finest soaps and perfumes. There was no store so exclusive that any caveman was barred from entry.

More importantly, though, it allowed humans to be the way that nature intended them to be. Modern humans might think this condition to be disgusting. Dirty, sweaty, buggy...but, it accomplished many goals. First, it kept the immune system strong. The immune system needs exercise to work at full efficiency. Without exposure to anitgens, the full complement of antibodies never develops. One theory behind why we are so sickly now, is that we over-use products designed to minimize our exposure to the things that make us sick! We need to get sick periodically to forestall further illness in the future. This is especially true for children.

Also, the smell likely camoflauged humans, to some degree, from prey animals. Not that humans and animals share the same intrinsic odors, but the various mishmash of other compounds layered on the skin may have provided some natural covering to the normal human smell. They would have to be closer to the prey for the odor to be detected and closer means higher probability of a successful hunt.

Further, human smell in its natural form contains compounds that our noses are evolved to notice. Yes, pheromones. It is not all industry bogus. They do exist, but our slavish devotion to washing, deoderants, perfumes and colognes mask them. We abhor, or so we think, the natural smell of humanity, but it is this natural smell that contains the true attractive compounds. Some very old tricks for attracting members of the opposite sex is to dab bits of body secretions from scandalous areas on the neck and wrists. That is because those naughty areas are the few left from which we can readily access our natural pheromones. By converting to the hygienic religion, we have actually hampered our abilities to attract mates! Also, some theorize that pheromonic compounds had other uses in broadcasting emotional signals, health signals, etc. All lost to us.

Modern humans would say this is rubbish. We stink and are ooky in natural form and that is not acceptable. Well, this may or may not be true. Who knows what was the smell of natural humans? Our diets are so different than theirs that our body odor would be different as well. Today, we exist on the brink of toxicity and there is truth in the "smell of death." We pollute our systems with chemicals, processed foods and other nasties that likely render us more stinky than our forebears. Also, we wear layers of garments. Silly as it sounds, evaporative cooling and the actions of the weather probably kept early man's bacterial action in check. We prevent a lot of our perspiration from being removed and shield our wrinkles and folds with protective clothing. This makes for great bacteria housing developments and it is these bacteria that are responsible for most of our sweaty stinkies.

As far as health concerns, this is again silly. General hygiene does not promote good health - public hygiene promotes good health. Our overdeveloped, overpopulated cities create the hygiene-related health concerns. Health problems due to poor personal care are rather limited and, in the big picture, minor. Did early man have a shorter lifespan than ours? Likely. But, this reduced lifespan was due to factors besides hygiene. Accidents - no doctors to heal broken bones or treat wounds/infections. Minor modern problems - poor vision meant poor chances for survival, etc. Having a dirty bum was not a major cause of death for Paleolithic man.

And, we truly don't know the overall lifespan of the species of that time. We have few fossils that even approach that age and that is a ridiculously small sample size on which to base a theory. We do know, that they demonstrated compassion and enabled individuals to prolong their lives in the face of adversity. A recently-discovered 2 million year old skull was found in the Republic of Georgia that was possessed of a jaw demonstrating only one tooth at age of death. The other teeth had been lost several years PRIOR to death. As there was little in the way of soft foods available at the time, someone must have taken the time and care to ensure this individual was fed.

I hate hygiene. It channels valuable time and dollars from my day in a ritual that I must repeat over and over. I feel enslaved. I think I shall revolt. No more hygiene for me! Well, starting tomorrow...I want to try a new moisturizing shampoo this morning...