Cleanliness Quotes
This quotation shows us that the 16th century English did not bathe very often. Even the Queen would only bathe once a month and she and the norms of the times did not feel that she “needed” it that often. Many English would go many months without bathing. Other Europeans were as bad or worse. Japan, in contrast, at the same time, had very frequent bathing. The Romans, 1500 years earlier not only bathed very frequently but created facilities for bathing in most Roman communities. Jewish communities also bathed frequently and had ritual baths but these were mainly for women.
The distrust and perception by many Muslims of non-Muslims is a practical and ethical problem. To many fundamentalist Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Animists—all non-Muslim Human Beings—are not only wrong but filthy and disgusting—in the same category as urine and feces. What is amazing however, that despite this paranoid view of ‘others’ Islamic nations have produced so many great physicians who compassionately have contact with impure non-believers every day. It also illustrates that most Muslims do not hold all the beliefs of their more fanatic co-religionists.
The Italians backed down and gave up their demand for territory, settling for a favorable trade treaty.
