If you ask any person what purity is, then the answers will line up in a long chain of sanitary and hygienic measures. However, cleanliness is not just washed hands, floors and utensils. Jewelers, programmers or linguists are well aware of this. And how people imagined purity in the distant Middle Ages can cause shock in any modern person.
Body wash - harm health
In medieval Europe, the concepts of spiritual and bodily purity were intertwined in the most bizarre way. The Catholic Church did not welcome other ablutions, except during baptism and before the wedding, so people literally practically did not wash themselves. And if you had to, then bathed right in the laundry, with the whole family in the same water.
They went to bed without undressing, and they changed their clothes once a season, when she probably already fettered movements. For washing, a concentrated solution of wood ash was used, in which the linen was soaked, then it was carried to the river, where the oars knocked out dirt and lye from it.
And to know, and commoners with such hygiene often hurt, because they had no idea that cleanliness was the key to health. For unsanitary conditions that reigned in homes and on the streets, Europeans paid millions of lives during the pandemic of the bubonic plague. By the way, the most neat medieval rulers are Isabella of Castile and Louis XIV, who washed only twice in their lives.
And in ancient Rome, in the homeland of hygiene and baths, they washed much more readily, brushed their teeth with dried mouse brains and washed their laundry with urine that corroded the dirt well.
Fortunately, with the development of medicine and industry, people believed in the bactericidal properties of soap, and here Fritz Henkel arrived in time with his washing powder.
Clean at the service of famous brands
The famous German company Henkel, founded in 1876, gave the world the first washing powder in factory packaging. Two years later, another product appeared - bleaching soda.
In the New World, Procter & Gamble, the first manufacturer of detergents in steel, launched Dreft in 1933. Specialized detergents for washing dishes, floors, windows began to appear, and it turned out that cleanliness was a real pleasure.
And the inhabitants of the USSR waited for "News" of domestic production only in 1953 and actively continued to use washing boards.
Meanwhile, washing machines were rapidly improving in the US and Europe. Surprisingly, the first automatic assistant was released back in 1949!
Our prototype "Eureka" appeared only in the 70s. He was replaced by the famous "Vyatka-automatic" - the brainchild of the Vesta plant, located in Kirov. Since 2005, the company belongs to the Italian brand Candy.
Today, manufacturers of cleaning, washing and hygiene products are not threatened with unemployment, because their products will always be the most popular after food. And for whom is the concept of cleanliness not related to washing, cleaning and bathing procedures?
Jewelry, Linguistics and more
Specialists of cleaning companies are undoubtedly adherents of cleanliness. We also include housewives and their hard, sometimes ungrateful, work. Now let's see for whom the meaning of the word “purity” takes on its own meaning:
- V.I. Lenin bequeathed to comrades-in-arms to keep clean the great and honorable title of party worker.
- For a linguist, clarity of speech is important. This means the absence of parasite words in the vocabulary.
- Every jeweler is familiar with the concept of diamond purity. It includes indicators of transparency, the ability of a stone to reflect and scatter light.
- Specialists in the field of computer technology have knowledge of the purity of a programming language (Haskell, Clean).
- Legally executed patent rights are called patent cleanliness.
- Propaganda of racial purity is one of the policies of the Nazis.
- Biblical commandment: Do not love your neighbor's wife. It better than any words reflects the purity of relations between people. This thesis is based on the idea of a strong married life.
- Spiritual purity is of no small importance today. And in China, a whole palace ensemble with the same name is dedicated to this concept.
Palace of Highest Purity
In the mountains of Longhushan stands the ancient Taoist temple complex of Shangqing, which translates from Chinese as "highest purity." Built in the 2nd century AD e. the founder of Taoism, Zhang Daolin, a beautiful palace burned down in 1930, but was completely restored in the style of the ancient Song empire.
An excursion to the origins of Taoism will be interesting to fans of Chinese culture and architecture. Here are 2 magnificent palaces, 12 pavilions, among which there is a pavilion of imprisoned evil spirits.
The highest spiritual purity is dedicated to 24 ritual courtyards, separated by gates and passages, for example, Gate of a magic star and Passage into the world of spirits.
Keeping body and soul clean is commendable and deserves respect. However, the measure is important in everything. Pathological cleanliness is regarded as a serious mental illness.
Maniacal desire for cleanliness
Fear of dirt and sewage is called ripophobia. From this arises an obsessive desire to keep themselves and surrounding objects in perfect purity. A person is unbalanced by a crumb of bread on the floor, a drop on the countertop and everything that a sick imagination connects with a potential breeding ground for infections.
Ripophobes are not born. The reason for the deviation may be raising the child in excessive cleanliness, when the baby is forbidden to take other people's toys, scolded for soiled clothes or forced to wash his hands too often. The fragile children's psyche begins to perceive any dirt as a manifestation of danger.
In adulthood, with a large share of suggestibility, ripophobes become due to the frightening prospect of contracting hepatitis, AIDS or skin diseases. A person closes in himself, is afraid to communicate with people, subjugates his disinfection life, and sterilizes almost everything he touches.
The phobic state is successfully treated with cognitive-behavioral therapy, and in advanced cases it is medication. Therefore, we can say that everything is good in moderation, and this statement is not least relevant to cleanliness.