In ancient times, science and technology were underdeveloped and productivity was low. Without so many dazzling toiletries in modern times, how did the ancients maintain personal hygiene?
Today we will reveal the answer together.
1. How are toothpaste and toothbrush made?
About toothpaste
Many people are curious. The ancients had limited technical conditions. How did they clean and maintain their teeth? Is it really like the TV series, just rinse your mouth with water after getting up in the morning?
This is not the case. On the contrary, the ancients were not only well equipped, but also the effect was not inferior to that of modern toothpaste. Now listen to me in detail.
As we all know, salt has the effect of whitening teeth and protecting teeth. The famous physician Sun Simiao wrote in the "Prescription for Preparing a Precious Daughter": "One twist of salt is put in the mouth every denier, and warm water is used to wipe and buckle teeth for hundreds of times, but after five days, the tongue is tight."
However, the ancients didn't regard salt as toothpaste, but they had an exclusive secret recipe-tooth powder. According to Puji Fang, tooth powder was made by burning pig's teeth, Gleditsia sinensis, ginger, Cimicifuga rhizome, Radix Rehmanniae Preparata, Mulv, Eclipta prostrata, Fructus Sophorae, Herba Asari, lotus leaf and green salt. The tooth powder made from this Chinese medicine not only wipes teeth with fragrance, but also has turbidity.
This tooth powder with cleaning effect and medicinal value is a whole, and everyone who has used it has said yes! Otherwise, how did the word "bright eyes and white teeth" come from? (This sentence is purely entertainment and has no factual basis.)
In addition to toothpaste, the ancients also used mouthwash. The mouthwash they used was not simple. They kept it at home and had various styles, such as salt water, tea water, wine, liquid medicine and so on.
About toothbrushes
At first, the ancients used the most convenient and direct tool to brush their teeth-fingers. Later, someone invented Yang Liuzhi to brush teeth, which is what the ancients called "morning chewing".
The practice is to take a small piece of Yang Liuzhi and rinse it, and then chew one end with your teeth, so that the branch fibers are exposed and bitten into hairs, so that a simple toothbrush is ready. This is similar to the "chewing stick" invented by Babylon, except that the other end of the chewing stick has a function of picking teeth, which is similar to the toothpick head we use now.
After making a toothbrush, you can dip a little tooth powder before brushing your teeth. This toothbrush is simple to make and low in cost.
Later, the toothbrush was upgraded, and the wise ancients began to make toothbrushes similar to modern toothbrushes from animal bristles. Most of them used bristles, which were a little hard but cheaper. The rich people used toothbrushes made from horse bristles, which were softer and more comfortable to brush their teeth.
By the Southern Song Dynasty, there had been shops specializing in making and selling toothbrushes, and there was also a "tooth powder shop" specializing in selling tooth powder prepared by traditional Chinese medicine. Toothpowder and toothbrushes had become social commodities.
Second, the secret of keeping your hair fresh and healthy
In the Qin and Han dynasties, people formed the habit of washing their hair every three days and bathing every five days. Therefore, the government took a day off every five days, which was called "taking a bath".
Although this shampoo cycle is a bit long for us modern people, for the ancients with long hair, washing every three days is diligent, and their diet is light and the air is not so bad, so their hair is not easy to get dirty.
Then what do they use to wash their hair? They use pure natural DIY shampoo.
People used rice washing water to wash their hair at first. Rice washing water contains some ingredients such as starch, protein and vitamins, which can not only help to remove oil stains, but also help to maintain scalp and hair.
Later, people mashed natural plants such as Gleditsia sinensis, Polygonum multiflorum and tea seeds to wash and protect their hair. It is recorded in Compendium of Materia Medica that Gleditsia sinensis can remove dandruff, relieve itching, reduce swelling and detoxify; Polygonum multiflorum Thunb can benefit blood, blacken hair and keep hair shiny; Eclipta prostrata can blacken the hair, and the hair loss will be born immediately ... Use this natural and healthy shampoo to maintain the hair, which is dark, thick, dandruff-free and itchy.
Third, those washing products with complete functions
Wash the number one player: Taomi water. During the Zhou Dynasty, people used rice washing water to take a bath, which was said to not only decontaminate, but also improve rough skin, cold hands and feet, low back pain and chilblain.
Player number two: Gleditsia sinensis. During the period of Xiao Qi in the Southern Dynasties, some people sold Gleditsia sinensis, with more than ten kinds and many uses. Used for washing face and bathing, it can effectively clean skin, eliminate dirt, and be lubricated and refreshing after washing; Used for laundry, clothes do not fade, deformation and luster; Used for bathing, it also has the effect of removing rheumatism and treating tinea.
No.3 contestant: plant ash. This is a cleaning product found in the long-term life practice of the ancients. It is the ashes left after burning straw. It is recorded in "Chicken Ribs" that southern women will use plant ash to take a bath or wash clothes.
Wash contestant number four: soap. This soap is not the other soap. It is made of a kind of plant with big and plump fruit "Fat Beads". Because Gleditsia sinensis is rare in central Zhejiang, people use Fat Beads instead of Gleditsia sinensis, hence the name "Soap". In autumn, people pick the fruit, mash it after cooking, add spices and flour, stir it evenly, and rub it into balls by hand for bathing, washing face and washing clothes.
……
There are also some care products with the same function, so I won't go into details here. Interested friends can find out for themselves.
Fourth, human law and nature
After reading Xiaobian's introduction, do you know something about "how the ancients kept personal hygiene"? All the toiletries they use come from natural raw materials.
Xiao Bian believes that the ancients advocated nature because nature gave them various resources to survive. Humans came to this world naked, shelter from the wind and rain is carried on the earth, food to eat is grown on the land, and daily toiletries are also from nature ... What's more, people are also a part of nature.
The ancient people's respect for nature is not only reflected in the ritual of offering sacrifices to heaven, earth and mountain gods in festivals, but also in literature and art. Ancient scholars like to travel around mountains and waters, create landscape paintings and chant landscape poems, and even the places where they live should imitate nature. The ancient garden architecture in China is characterized by pursuing the reappearance of the beauty of nature, using rocks, plants and buildings to adapt to local conditions, and embodies a pleasant and leisurely natural beauty.
There is a saying in Laozi's Tao Te Ching: Man practices the land, the land practices the heaven, the heaven practices the Tao, and the Tao is natural. Among them, the word "law" can be understood as the meaning of compliance. These four short sentences reflect the ancient people's awe of nature, and realize that human beings should follow the laws of nature, that is, "human beings should follow nature", so that human beings can survive better.
Because of this, the ancients divided 24 solar terms long ago. Each solar term in the 24 solar terms represents climate, phenology and time, and it closely links the concept of time with the concept of nature, such as the names of the solar terms such as Spring Rain, first frost, Millennium and Mangxia, which are natural phenomena in themselves. Twenty-four solar terms are of great significance to guide ancient agricultural production and predict climate change.
V. Sustainable development
The ancients revered nature, while modern people conquered it.
With the development of science and technology, modern people have made great achievements in conquering nature. At the same time, the ecological environment has been destroyed unprecedentedly. Global air pollution, rising sea level, species extinction ... Nature is facing a very severe situation. Therefore, we should regain our ancestors' ideological achievements of "conforming to the laws of nature and maintaining ecological balance".
In the pre-Qin period, the ancients had a sense of environmental protection, advocated taking it in moderation and using it sparingly, and opposed burning the fields and exhausting the waters to fish. The ancestors discussed the importance of respecting the laws of nature from a philosophical point of view, which is a profound insight on "man and nature" in Chinese culture and the ideological forerunner of "sustainable development".
As a modern developing country, China shoulders the dual mission of realizing modernization and maintaining ecological balance at the same time, and can't take "pollution first, then treatment"; Destroy first, then build. Instead, we should absorb the wisdom of our ancestors, learn the ecological consciousness of the ancients, and consciously bring social and economic activities into the virtuous circle of the natural system, so as to achieve harmony between man and nature and promote the construction and development of ecological civilization.
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