47 Fun Facts About Hygiene

Which Greek goddess, a daughter of Asclepius, personified health and cleanliness?

Hygieia, daughter of the medicine god Asclepius, personified health and cleanliness; her name is the root of the English word 'hygiene'.

The US CDC recommends scrubbing your hands with soap for at least how long?

The CDC says to scrub for at least 20 seconds, about the time it takes to hum 'Happy Birthday' twice; water temperature makes no difference, friction removes the germs.

Who introduced chlorinated-lime hand disinfection in Vienna's First Obstetrical Clinic in 1847?

Ignaz Semmelweis ordered chlorinated-lime hand washing in 1847, sharply cutting childbed-fever deaths; unable to explain why it worked, he was mocked by colleagues.

Evidence of soap-like materials being made dates back to around 2800 BC in which ancient civilisation?

Babylon: soap-like residues there date to about 2800 BC, and a Babylonian clay tablet from about 2200 BC records a recipe of water, alkali and cassia oil.

The first modern-style toothbrush, from Tang-dynasty China, used which animal's bristles?

Bristles came from hogs in Siberia and northern China because cold weather made them firmer; handles were bamboo or bone.

Where did William Addis come up with the idea for the first mass-produced toothbrush in 1780?

In prison: jailed in 1770 for rioting, Addis drilled holes in a saved meal bone and threaded in bristles, then founded his toothbrush business in 1780 after his release.

Which company introduced nylon toothbrush bristles, replacing animal hair, in 1938?

DuPont supplied the nylon for Dr. West's Miracle-Tuft, the first nylon-bristle toothbrush, which went on sale on February 24, 1938 and replaced animal bristles.

Dr. Washington Sheffield put toothpaste in a collapsible tube in 1880 after his son saw what in Paris?

His son Lucius saw painters squeezing paint from collapsible metal tubes in Paris; Sheffield then packaged his Creme Dentifrice in similar metal tubes from 1880.

What did dental floss inventor Levi Spear Parmly recommend running between teeth in 1819?

Parmly's 1819 book A Practical Guide to the Management of the Teeth advised passing waxed silk thread between the teeth, calling it the most important part of oral care.

The first modern commercial deodorant, patented in Philadelphia in 1888, was sold under what name?

Mum, patented in Philadelphia in 1888 by an unnamed inventor, was the first commercial deodorant; the trademark was given to his nurse, who chose the name.

The first commercial antiperspirant, launched in 1903, was called what?

Everdry, launched in 1903, was the first commercial antiperspirant; its aluminum chloride solution stopped sweat but irritated skin, a problem Jules Montenier's 1941 formula later solved.

The English word 'shampoo', dating to 1762, comes from a Hindi word meaning what?

Hindi champo means 'to press or knead'; when 'shampoo' entered English in 1762 it meant a head and body massage with oil, not a hair soap.

The earliest recorded use of paper for toilet hygiene, in the 6th century AD, comes from which country?

China: the scholar-official Yan Zhitui wrote of using paper this way around 589, and by 1393 the Ming court was ordering hundreds of thousands of purpose-made sheets a year.

Joseph Gayetty's 'Medicated Paper', the first commercial toilet paper in the US, launched in which year?

Gayetty launched his Medicated Paper in 1857 as flat aloe-treated sheets watermarked with his name, sold in packs of 500.

Which company popularised toilet paper on rolls when it began marketing them in 1890?

Scott Paper Company of Philadelphia began selling toilet paper on rolls in 1890; Seth Wheeler of Albany had patented the perforated roll and a dispenser in 1883.

Which pioneer of antiseptic surgery gave his name to a mouthwash developed in 1879?

Joseph Lister, the antiseptic-surgery pioneer, inspired the name of Joseph Lawrence's Listerine of 1879, first sold as a surgical antiseptic and floor cleaner before becoming an over-the-counter mouthwash in 1914.

Listerine sales exploded in the 1920s when it was sold as the cure for which then-obscure term?

Halitosis: Listerine's 1920s ads turned the obscure medical term for bad breath into a household fear; the word, from Latin halitus ('breath'), dates to 1874 and was not coined by the brand.

Global Handwashing Day is marked every year on which date?

15 October has been Global Handwashing Day since the first one in 2008, promoting washing with soap before eating and after using the toilet.

The CDC recommends alcohol-based hand sanitizer containing at least what percentage of alcohol?

Formulas of 60 to 95 percent are most effective; they kill most microbes but not spores, and they are flammable.

Which chemical did Joseph Lister introduce at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary in 1865 to sterilise wounds and tools?

Inspired by Pasteur's work on microbes, he showed in 1865 that carbolic dressings sharply cut post-surgical infection.

In 1854 John Snow traced a London cholera outbreak to a public water pump on which Soho thoroughfare?

Broad Street (now Broadwick Street): Snow's map clustered deaths round its pump and the parish removed the handle on 8 September 1854, though officials later replaced it and rejected his theory.

Joseph Bazalgette built London's main sewer system in response to which event of 1858?

The Great Stink of summer 1858, when the sewage-filled Thames reeked so badly that Parliament's curtains were soaked in chloride of lime, pushed MPs to fund Bazalgette's sewers, which helped end London's cholera epidemics.

King Camp Gillette's safety razor became dominant after which body began issuing them to soldiers?

The US Army issued Gillette safety razors to its troops in the First World War, buying millions of razors and blades in 1918 and sending servicemen home with the habit.

Leo Gerstenzang invented the mass-produced Q-tip in 1923 after watching his wife do what?

He first called them Baby Gays, then Q-tips Baby Gays; the Q stood for quality.

The word 'bidet' is French for what?

Bidet means 'pony' in French, because you straddle the fixture like a small horse; French furniture makers seem to have invented it in the late 17th or early 18th century.

Sir John Harington described a forerunner of the flush toilet in 1596 and installed one for which monarch?

Elizabeth I, Harington's godmother, had one of his water closets installed at Richmond Palace; his 1596 book was punningly titled The Metamorphosis of Ajax ('a jakes' being a privy).

Alexander Cumming's 1775 patent for what device laid the foundation of the modern flush toilet?

Cumming's 1775 patent covered the S-trap, a bend that keeps standing water in the pipe to seal out sewer gases, together with a sliding valve beneath the bowl.

Under what brand was Earle Haas's tube-within-a-tube applicator tampon sold from 1933?

Tampax: Gertrude Tenderich bought Haas's patent in 1933, at first making the tampons at home with a sewing machine, and hired nurses to give public lectures on the product.

Which slogan did Ivory soap introduce in 1891?

'It Floats!' became Ivory's slogan in 1891, trading on the air whipped into the soap mixture that let the bar bob to the surface of the bath.

Community water fluoridation to prevent tooth decay began in which year?

Grand Rapids, Michigan, became the first city to fluoridate its water on 25 January 1945, after decades of research into the 'Colorado brown stain' mottling seen where fluoride was naturally high.

The first electric toothbrush to reach the market, the Broxodent, was invented in 1954 in which country?

Switzerland: Dr. Philippe-Guy Woog designed the Broxodent there in 1954, originally for patients with limited motor skills; an American patent for a 'Motodent' had been filed back in 1937.

Which emperor built the enormous Roman baths, with library rooms, completed in 216 AD?

Caracalla's baths, opened in 216, could serve some 1,600 bathers and held two libraries, one Greek and one Latin; their vaulted halls inspired the waiting room of New York's original Penn Station.

Which 1990 self-help book by sleep researcher Peter Hauri laid out sleep-hygiene rules?

No More Sleepless Nights (1990), by Peter Hauri and Shirley Linde, brought sleep-hygiene rules to a popular audience; Hauri had first set them out for clinicians in 1977.

Florence Nightingale is credited with inventing which kind of statistical chart?

Her polar area diagrams, nicknamed coxcombs, showed that far more Crimean War soldiers died of disease than of wounds; the form is often called the Nightingale rose.

Which French and German pair of scientists are most associated with proving the germ theory of disease?

Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch: Pasteur's swan-neck flasks disproved spontaneous generation in the 1860s, and Koch's postulates and his 1882 identification of the tuberculosis bacillus tied specific germs to specific diseases.

Which Greek physician recommended a mouth rinse of salt, alum and vinegar around 400 BC?

Hippocrates, writing around 400 BC, recommended rinsing the mouth with salt, alum and vinegar, one of the earliest recorded mouthwash recipes.

Which deodorant brand did Bristol-Myers launch in 1952?

Ban Roll-On, launched by Bristol-Myers in 1952, used a rolling-ball applicator that Helen Barnett Diserens modelled on the newly popular ballpoint pen.

In 1873, which company began mass-producing aromatic toothpaste in jars, before tubes existed?

Colgate began selling its first toothpaste, an aromatic dentifrice in jars, in 1873; it switched to collapsible tubes with Ribbon Dental Cream in 1896.

Whose 1791 process for making soda ash from common salt made soap far cheaper?

Nicolas Leblanc's process, patented in 1791, turned common salt into soda ash, the alkali soap makers needed, and helped turn soap from a luxury into a mass product.

Which obstetrician urged cleanliness on lying-in wards to prevent childbed fever as early as 1773?

Charles White's 1773 Treatise on the Management of Pregnant and Lying-in Women urged cleanliness and ventilation in childbirth; Alexander Gordon (1795) and Oliver Wendell Holmes (1843) later tied childbed fever to attendants' hands.

How often should a healthy adult replace their toothbrush, according to standard advice?

About every 3 months: the American Dental Association advises a new brush every three to four months, or sooner once the bristles fray.

England's NHS advises against doing what immediately after brushing your teeth?

Rinsing with water washes away the concentrated fluoride left by toothpaste; the NHS says to spit out the excess and not rinse, and to avoid brushing straight after acidic drinks.

Alcohol-based hand sanitizers are considered ineffective in which situation?

On visibly soiled or greasy hands, sanitizer cannot reach the germs under the dirt; soap and running water are needed to physically remove it.

Sleep hygiene recommendations were first developed in the late 1970s to help people with what?

Mild to moderate insomnia: the rules were drawn up in the late 1970s as a first-line, drug-free approach, though later reviews found the evidence for individual recommendations limited and inconclusive.

What broad term covers antiseptics, disinfectants and pesticides alike?

Biocide is the umbrella term for any chemical meant to destroy or control harmful organisms, so it covers antiseptics for skin, disinfectants for surfaces and pesticides alike.

Which label means a disinfectant kills the dormant, highly resistant form of bacteria?

Sporicidal disinfectants kill bacterial spores, the hardest targets; all disinfectants are bactericidal but only some are also fungicidal, virucidal or sporicidal, so labels matter.

'Targeted hygiene' in the home borrows its risk-based approach from which food-safety system?

HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points), the food-industry system, inspired targeted hygiene: identify the moments and surfaces where germs spread and break the chain of infection there, rather than cleaning everything.