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Virginia Smith, Clean: a history of personal hygiene and purity, Oxford University Press, 2007, pp. xi, 457, illus., £16.99 (hardback 978-0-19-929779-5).
Cleanliness is next to godliness, table manners, monetary exchange and a host of other human behaviours; how has it escaped the notice of anthropologists, ethnologists and historians for so long? One of Virginia Smith's many accomplishments in this excellent study is integrating the philosophies and practices central to the subject. Cleanliness is part of medical routines essential for the prevention of disease; it has an aesthetic foundation in the human love of order and beauty and the exercise of such on the body; and it has a moral dimension in perceptions of purity, that of the body in harmony with the soul. By explaining the contradictions inherent in these concepts, the author identifies why the very few previous publications on cleanliness have dealt with either theories of hygiene or related inventions, but not both. Practices enhancing beauty can endanger health; they encourage vanity and self-obsession, behaviours in conflict with moral purity, and scientific discoveries connecting health with hygiene are sometimes incompatible...