tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19717148.post5266800442429056868..comments2023-05-18T11:19:33.857+02:00Comments on animals stuck to the wall: It's like buses. Part 3: A pondery bit...EvilAuntiePerilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01278720691584010136noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19717148.post-53640055758213573832009-08-18T22:28:12.720+02:002009-08-18T22:28:12.720+02:00Wow. I go away for 6 weeks or so, and people show ...Wow. I go away for 6 weeks or so, and people show up commenting. How cool.<br /><br />So thank you (and hello), Diana, Ruth and kaigou for extending the discussion.EvilAuntiePerilhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01278720691584010136noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19717148.post-47622599217033433342009-08-07T05:20:07.829+02:002009-08-07T05:20:07.829+02:00The roman tradition of bathing (and public baths) ...The roman tradition of bathing (and public baths) continued unabated, even encouraged, until right around 1492, when a confluence of events (with different sources depending on the historian) resulted in the rapid spread of a new and vicious form of syphilis streaking through Europe. Didn't help that its outbreak was somewhere in southern Italy, right when French soldiers were turning around and heading home -- and merrily spreading the mutated form to everyone and everything. <br /><br />Somewhere in the midst of the panic (because apparently this mutated form was far deadlier), someone got the bright idea that one could catch the illness from sharing bathwater. That in turn led to the city baths, one by one, being shut down on the grounds of controlling the disease's spread, and since those baths were the sole bath-source for many city dwellers, people just learned to do without. And, eventually, the backwards art form known as medicine ended up correlating "no bath" and "good health", stayed that way for a good long time.<br /><br />Not that I can blame them; if my other option were dying as horribly as syphilis takes you out, I'd probably forgo baths, too.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19717148.post-44454617256012713102009-08-03T19:57:34.749+02:002009-08-03T19:57:34.749+02:00@Diania : And possibly these two things are relate...@Diania : And possibly these two things are related, since along with baths, roads, and armies, the "glory that was Rome" also famously includes Christian persecution.Ruthnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19717148.post-13950897494506633152009-08-02T23:06:20.064+02:002009-08-02T23:06:20.064+02:00The Romans were also obsessed with hygiene. Thus, ...The Romans were also obsessed with hygiene. Thus, aqueducts.Diananoreply@blogger.com