In the 1700s, hydrotherapy was the panacea. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist church, wrote in his book that cold water plunges could cure asthma, malaria, blindness, leprosy and even cancer (wait, did that say blindness?).
But by the beginning of the 19th century, well-informed physicians wanted to get more precise about curing the insane. It was believed that one of the causes of mania was ‘hot brain’, a violent heat that boiled the blood and dried out the brain.
Cooling the brain seemed an obvious solution.
And so throughout the 19th century, various apparatus that harnessed therapeutic forces of water emerged to aid in “curing” the insane. And here we find the less relaxing and more barbaric origins of the shower.
As we’ve discovered in many cases from that period of history, some people took it way too far.
One guy who went to extremes was Dr Patrick Blair. He helped ‘cure’ a woman who was declared mad (for not wanting to have sex with her husband) by stripping and blindfolding her, tying her to a chair in a bathtub under a 35-foot high water tower, and submitting her to intense water pressure over her head, face, neck and breasts until she swore to become a loving, obedient and dutiful wife.
So basically, torture.
There was also Dr Benjamin Rush who made what he called a ‘tranquillizer chair’. This is where he’d strap down a patient, put a box around their head, and then begin to fill it from above, threatening them with death. He considered this a very effective strategy for resistant cases.
This led others to come up with the brilliant idea of building asylums with built-in showers for administering treatment. Prisons quickly followed suit.
Now, showers have come a long way since then. They became much less a torture apparatus and more of a convenience over the bathtub. The English Regency Shower, an invention far closer to our modern showers, came about in the early 1800s and by the 1870s, many houses began to have hot water pumped in through the fenestrated fixtures.
But things really took off in the early 20th century, largely due to the advertising and soap industries, which capitalised on social anxieties about body odour and bad breath. Classic corporate greed preying on the dirty folk.
But in the age of the microbiome, have we taken cleanliness too far? Could it be that we’re showering too much?
Dermatologists will tell you that water alone strips away the oils in our skin that help to preserve moisture, leaving us susceptible to irritants and allergens.
Is it time we rethink our daily cleansing rituals?
Perhaps we should quit showers altogether! Like one guy in Iran who didn’t shower for over 60 years. His neighbours finally convinced him to wash and the poor guy died shortly after.
Although there is one American President who had a special shower to keep him happy and healthy. It had nozzles to blast him like a fire hose in the dick, balls and butt. An odd interpretation of his second amendment rights but whatever wakes you up in the morning man!
SOURCES:
Australians are (nearly) global leaders in the shower stakes, in WA Today, by Ray Sparvell
Bathing Habits by Country 2023, World Population Review
Compulsive showering and marijuana use – the cannabis hyperemisis syndrome, in American Journal of Case Reports, by Fawwaz Mohammed, Kirby Panchoo, Maria Bartholemew and Dale Maharaj
Cure-All: John Wesley throws some cold water on, well, everything. Lapham’s Quarterly.
I Quit Showering, and Life Continued, in The Atlantic by James Hamblin
L.B.J. Demanded White House Shower Be Fitted with Nozzles Aimed at His Nether Regions, According to New Book, in Vanity Fair, by Kia Makarechi
Showering Has a Dark, Violent History, in The Atlantic by Sarah Zhang
Showers: from a violent treatment to an agent of cleansing, in History of Psychiatry, by Stephanie C Cox, Clare Hocking and Deborah Payne
You’re Showering Too Much, in The Atlantic by James Hamblin
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Will 00:00
The story goes that the madman was being transported. You know, he was being taken to an asylum or something he was he was like, an insane guy, insane guy. This is this is back when they use the term madmen
Rod 00:11
and insane
Will 00:12
yes. you know he was in the back of a waggon and he was chained down and
Rod 00:20
standard practice.
Will 00:22
So again, yes, yes, this is not current practice
Rod 00:25
we're going to use, we're going to use the medicinal chains, it'll be okay.
Will 00:29
Yes, the madman was chained in the back of the waggon. And, and they must have been going through forests and fields and shit like this, you know, they're on a dirt road or something like that. And suddenly, he freed himself from his chains. And he jumped down from the waggon and jumped into a lake that was next to the road and started swimming as far as he could. He was trying to get to the other side of the lake. And, you know, you can imagine freedom over there or something like that, whatever madman thoughts he had, he just went in that direction. But halfway across the lake, he fainted. And all his guards went out to collect him and they dragged him out and everyone thought he was dead.
Rod 01:08
They thought he was dead.
Will 01:10
Yeah for a period for a period, they thought that the dude is good.
Rod 01:15
It's been a few weeks.
Will 01:16
I don't know how long I don't know how. But the thing is, he quickly recovered his spirits. And in fact, not only did he recover his spirits, he was and this is this is the term that was used in the original version of this story. He was abruptly restored to the natural order. And from that day on, he lived a long time without experiencing any further attack of madness.
Rod 01:38
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm now I'm going to say this. So drowning therapy was born. Fantastic. Fantastic.
Will 01:49
Close, close, close, but no cigar. Close. Now, of course, I don't I don't know if that actually happened. Or which details are true and which is not true. True.
Rod 02:01
We're gonna go with therapeutic waterboarding.
Will 02:09
But it doesn't really matter. Because Because the 17th century Brussels doctor and scientist, he was a legitimate scientist, Yan Baptiste van Hellman. He certainly believed it was true. It was like, okay, something happened here. And I want to go all the way. And so for the rest of his career, the story is that he began a long side career, he's doing legit science as well. A side career of plunging the insane indiscriminately into sea or freshwater. And here's his quote from him. The only care he stressed is that sufferers must be plunged into the water suddenly and unawares. And to keep them there for a long time. One need no fear for their lives.
Rod 02:55
Basically, probably good that you chain them up, you take them somewhere when they don't know the new the water and then you don't wake them up do for you just drop them in, leave them chained and drop them in? That would certainly have an impact.
Will 03:07
It would it would have an impact. See, this is an origin story that it goes in a quite unexpected direction. Because yes, you have guessed there is hydrotherapy, water torture. But actually, this is the origin story of something that's far more domestic, far more visible in our day to day lives. This is something that you probably used this morning, you might use tonight. And in fact, something most of the world uses at least once or twice, nearly every single day and maybe even up to 15 times a day. And in fact, it's one of my favourite places to be. This is the origin story of the shower. I got a few little places we're going to go in this episode. You know, as you guessed, times when they used showers as a torture device. When showers went mainstream, which country showers the most, how often you should shower and which American president had a special shower made with nozzles to blast him hard, straight in the dick, balls and butt. Welcome to the wholesome show.
Rod 04:16
the podcast that stands blissfully under the torrential shower from the hole of science.
Will 04:24
I'm Will Grant
Rod 04:25
I'm remote rod Lambert's
Will 04:27
I'm gonna kick things off. I'm gonna go a little bit earlier than van Helmont and his madman friend. The story that I want to cover is is the modern shower. And that came about weirdly following his discovery. But of course, there's absolutely evidence of ancient people in a variety of places around the world using something that's a bit similar to a modern shower like there's
Rod 04:51
an elephant
Will 04:53
standing under an elephant.
Rod 04:55
I've seen the Flintstones isn't that how it works?
Will 04:57
Sure. I don't know if that's evidence though
Rod 04:59
Line up your mammoth.
Will 05:01
I don't think that's evidence.
Rod 05:03
It's very well drawn.
Will 05:03
No, but no, I'd like there's Ancient Egyptians. They had servants pouring urns of water over them, which I guess is a bit like a shower.
Rod 05:12
I don't think emptying a bucket. I wouldn't quite call it a shower.
Will 05:15
Me too. Well, the ancient Greeks may have had something a little bit even closer to a shower. So they had, like pipes would be installed high up and water would fall to the user, which that to me is a lot like a shower.
Rod 05:28
Archimedes douche
Will 05:30
the Archimedes douche, there is a douche coming up. Key thing is sometime between the ancient Greeks and Van Helmont. And Van helmets, like in the beginning of the 17th century, attitude seemed to have change. It could have been that people just got shittier at plumbing, you know, they just lost the technology. I don't know. It could have been changes in tastes like they got wussier about cold water or they stopped caring about being clean. It also could have been pseudoscience.
Rod 05:58
Imagine
Will 05:59
yeah I know, Katharine Ashenburg. She's argued in her book, clean and unsanitized history of washing, that medical authorities of the mediaeval period all the way up until the 16th and 17th centuries, that they had this argument that blocked pores sealed the body off from infection. So if you stayed nice and dirty, then you couldn't get infected.
Rod 06:21
this is the classic old ye position like you know, if you feeling unwell, and you coughing and so forth, you could shut all the windows and doors and seal yourself in as well. So why not do it at the body level? Because it wasn't miasma, evil air?
Will 06:34
Yeah, well, that was definitely a theory. Maybe it's a sort of, I don't know like a fortress idea. Like you can block everything off.
Rod 06:42
Can see the logic but it's gross
Will 06:44
doctors were testing this. doctors, scientists, people were testing was theory that if you block off the pores, that was a good thing or a bad thing anyway, so this is the only the only line I got from this I couldn't find it. Experiments on horses covered with glue had seen the poor animals die. And while this was probably more due to overheating, it convinced doctors of the need for cleanliness.
Rod 07:08
The other obvious evidence that it's important that you don't seal the pores is of course from the 1960s James Bond movie late 60s Goldfinger
Will 07:16
you cover someone in gold they die
Rod 07:18
now you come in paint gold paint, any paint unless you know it was the theories unless you leave a small hole at the base of the spine you skin suffocate
Will 07:26
small hole of the base of the spine
Rod 07:28
Yeah, that's literally what they said. So those that come into the room some poor woman had recently taken advantage of his line they're covered in gold paint and she sort of she skin suffocated, which is probably horseshit.
Will 07:36
but it probably comes her from that sort of period saying what your skin was porous and that your skin breathed. I think I think it was an emerging thing at that sort of time but yeah, I got no more details on that the there's a good bit of pseudoscience to check out. Anyway, for Van helmet. The idea was there. Maybe a plunge in water could fix a whole bunch of things. And so
Rod 07:38
morals at least
Will 07:39
he didn't call it hydrotherapy, I don't think but others started embracing this idea of hydrotherapy at this sort of time. I got to read a few of them. And I just love. So one of the one of the advocates was John Wesley. He's the founder of the Methodist Church
Rod 08:18
He was a Wesleyan then
Will 08:19
He was a Wesleyan, founder of Methodist church. He invented cleanliness is godliness.
Rod 08:25
Next to godliness
Will 08:27
next to godliness. Yeah, that's true.
Rod 08:28
No, it's not if you're lazy, have a shower, you're not God. Jesus dude.
Will 08:32
But he was a big fan of cleanliness. But he thought cold water was was like manna from heaven. it'd fix everything. So from his book, awesome, awesome. 1744 book title, primitive physic or an easier natural method of curing most diseases, which is quite short for that time.
Rod 08:51
Very short.
Will 08:52
To the point
Rod 08:52
I find it lacks credibility being that short like if you don't give me half the book in the title, I think you're hiding something.
Will 08:58
So for asthma, take a pint of cold water every morning, washing the head in cold water immediately after and using the cold bath.
Rod 09:04
Okay,
Will 09:05
for rickets in children. dip them in cold water every morning.
Rod 09:11
That's it? Ricketts gone
Will 09:14
I kind of imagined this as a scruff of the neck sort of thing like dip your children in cold water. Hey dad, I wasn't awake yet! Oh believe me, as a parent of a teenager. I feel like the dip in cold water that'd get things started.
Rod 09:38
Or stopped if you're worried about immoral behaviours,
Will 09:40
yeah, there you go. to prevent apoplexy. Use a cold bath and drink only cold water.
Rod 09:47
Or cause it. if you're really feeling you know, a bit high strung and someone dumped you in cold water I can imagine being apoplectic could be quite a reasonable response
Will 09:57
for argue. Which seems to be like malaria or other shivering diseases, cold bath just before you get cold you have a cold bath and that starts getting cold. Here's here's where it gets wild. Blindness, leprosy or hysterics, colic, cold bath. for cancer in the breast
Rod 10:19
blindness. This isn't hard to test. I'm blind, How do you feel now? Blind. I don't know what went wrong? I followed the recipe exactly. I'm still blind.
Will 10:37
Yeah, cancer through the breast, use cold bath. This is cured many this is cured Mrs. Bates of Leicestershire of a cancer in her breast a consumption of sciatica, and rheumatism which he had nearly 20 years
Rod 10:49
Did it also cure masturbator?
Will 10:56
He'd say, once you've once you've had the cold bath cure, then you got to drink a lot of cold water, like you just got to keep on the cold water track. By the beginning of the 19th century, you know, these sorts of ideas were, they're a little bit out of fashion. So doctors from like the beginning of the 1800s. They're like this is exceedingly reprehensible to a well informed physician of the present day. But it wasn't the water. It wasn't the water though. They were like no like, no, the water is cool. Water is cool. But plunging, that's just ridiculous. Like that is primitive that is not precise. We are precise people now we need to instead of just you know, chucking people in a lake or plunging them in a cold bath, we have to target a little more precisely what's going on.
Rod 11:45
I really like the way this is heading, like I'm very excited. Feel like I might have had a recent experience that might be relevant.
Will 11:54
So you've got people who loved the water cure. And then you've got people who are like, alright, we need to be a bit more targeted. And so you get at the same sort of time, the emergence of this theory that any any sort of mania, or madness or insanity that they're emerging, the idea that it's in the head, like that actually is a revelation to be mad that it's something in the head. And they thought one of the causes of mania was violent heat that boiled the blood and dried out the brain. And I don't I don't have the details on who did this. But there are a bunch of doctors that the, in this sort of period, who did autopsies, looked at the brains and said look that's inflamed. That's clearly that's an inflamed brain. That's why they're mad or the other way around. The madness made their brain inflamed. But anyway, they they said
Rod 12:39
You know, I had a housemate back when I started my PhD and he was he was doing he was going over America and he was dating this Vietnamese woman who's also doing a master's degree. And she was really worried about a dog one of my other housemates had had get too excited at loud noises and stuff and she said, this is just like at home. The problem is when when it gets really hot, the dogs brains boil and they eat their owners. And she was convinced this is what would happen to dogs it gets too hot their dogs brains would boil and they would eat their owners and she said this quite vociferously great passion.
Will 13:11
Look, I know that there is data out there that shows various forms of violence go up in hot weather.
Rod 13:17
Sure, because you just get shitty. Shitty and sticky,
Will 13:19
no totally. So look, you could see someone worked up one of these madmen you can see that they worked up their brain looks or hot. So like so he comes to the obvious solution. We don't go to dunk people in the whole water. Instead, what we need to do is get a little bit targeted straight to the head. one of the first was a guy called Patrick Blair, a doctor, a terrible human like literally, I'll tell you. he wrote a letter to his friend Dr. Barnard, in 1718, containing some considerable improvements concerning the use of cold bathing. Anyway, Dr. Blair reckons he cured a man who was raving mad by binding them in a cart, stripped him of his clothes and blindfolded him so that the surprise might be greater and he all of a sudden had a great fall of water let down on him which is weird. I'm not sure the agency of those things but they poured a great bucket of water on him from 20 feet under which he continued so as long as his strength would permit so this is coming from not just a bucket sorry, but like it's a continued stream from a water tank or something like that.
Rod 14:27
20 feet high raging torrent until his legs gave out?
Will 14:31
until his strength. Yeah, well, as long as his strength would permit.
Rod 14:34
And so it was cold as well?
Will 14:36
Of course it's cold they can't heat water back then.
Rod 14:38
That's true. They had no heating. So this poor bastard is standing there until he cannot take it at all anymore. Full stop.
Will 14:44
But after his return home, he fell into his sleep and slept 29 hours and awakened in his quieter state of mind as ever. As so had continued to the time of writing and letter which was 12 months ago. A hot brain being the cause perhaps of several disorders in the understanding, as in great found to be true in the ridiculous behaviour of some drunken men which when their heads have become cool, abore what they do or say. So he's saying, pour a bucket of water on these people, and it turns them proper
Rod 15:20
hence the phrase cooldown mate.
Will 15:23
One day he decided to cure a woman who had become mad and neglected her family. And I think reading between the lines that means she didn't want to sleep with her husband.
Rod 15:34
I was going to exactly say that so not not wanting to bang therefore she's crazy.
Will 15:39
I think I think that's what it is. He went further he you know, last time it was how high was it? 20 feet. This time, he rigged up a bathtub under a 30 foot high water tower.
Rod 15:50
Cool.
Will 15:51
A married woman became mad, neglected everything would not own her family nor husband nor any of the family. I ordered her to be blindfolded. She was lifted up by force, placed in and fixed to the chair in the bathing tub. All this put her in an unexpressible terror, especially when the water was let down. I kept her under the fall for 30 minutes, stopping the pipe now and then in inquiring whether she would take to her husband, but she still obstinately denied till at last being much fatigued with the pressure of the water, she promised you would do what I desired.
Rod 16:22
So I'm gonna torture you till you say you're banging her husband. So, cure you
Will 16:27
a week after another trial. But adding a smaller pipe
Rod 16:31
or high pressure
Will 16:31
One let the water fall on top of her head, the other squirted it in her face, or any other part of her head, neck or breast I thought proper. So this is just basically torture. Like he's, he's pretending this as a cure. This is just torture.
Rod 16:43
And then we added version three where they put small bits of gravel in the fast pipe to really really make sure she was exfoliated to nearly death.
Will 16:51
Being still very strong. I gave her 60 minutes this time when she showed me so obstinate that she would not promise to take her husband until her spirits being almost dissipated, she promised to love him as before. I gave her the third trial of the fall and continued her 90 minutes. Now I gotta tell you how much water in a second. I threatened her with a fourth, took her out of the out of bed had her stripped blindfolded and ready to put in the chair. When she being terrified with what she was to undergo, she kneeled submissively that I would spare her and she'll become a loving, obedient and dutiful wife forever thereafter.
Rod 17:21
So the operative word in that whole treatment shedule is threatened.
Will 17:28
What a fucking turd, like what a monster. it's just torture.
Rod 17:33
I'm gonna torture you until you bang your husband again. It's nothing to do with him. Obviously. He's a beautiful man sensitive lover, very clean, I'm sure very attractive in great shape. A six pack and eight pack.
Will 17:44
Yeah, yeah, he's that guy in the 17th century.
Rod 17:47
What's wrong with her? Mental miasma
Will 17:51
so he says that in 90 minutes, 15 tonne of water was left down, which I worked this out. The your normal set like a water efficient shower now is nine litres per minute. This was 166 litres per minute. So it's an astonishing volume. And you know, you know, sometimes you go to a place and you have you have one of those showers. That's like super high pressure and you go whoa, this is off the charts, like just this torrent of water.
Rod 18:17
And I mean, that's one thing if it's under one of those waterfall showers, it's just falling over you it's a huge nozzle and you sit there you know, luxury it, but if it's coming through one of those water savers, it's like getting acupuncture. Look, you know, it's horrifying. Get ready and I assume the smaller hose that he was what was it aiming whether he thought made sense.
Will 18:37
he was a horrible person. And this is just torture, not any pretence at doing some sort of cure. Yeah, there were other people that were making devices which are still quite torturous, but they're actually thinking there is some sort of science here. This first one is called Morrison's douche bath. So, this is like a sort of coffin that you sit people down in and there's a little hole
Rod 19:03
I'm already out, I'm already out. You can't put me in a coffin while I'm alive, that's just not cool
Will 19:07
then it's got this little tinkling little tap that sits above you and you can like they could control the height of the device I can move this thing up and down and put water in there. The different parts of an apparatus for giving the douche consists of a bucket from which a stream of water is made to fall on the head of the patient from different heights
Rod 19:25
it looks really quite like alien technology is designed in 1910 through War of the Worlds
Will 19:30
a little bit so you know they'd stripped the patient down put them in the bath and then sit them there for a while having water just tickling on their head
Rod 19:39
did I say that right and does it look like once you put in there they could put something over you so only your head stuck out?
Will 19:43
Yeah, that's not what they're aiming for the head the heads where the hot head is trapped in
Rod 19:49
with your noggin sticking out like a coffin with a head hop.
Will 19:53
We got to keep people still like that kind of moving away from the stream of water, the steady stream of healing water.
Rod 19:59
How will they get better? Will they want their husbands again?
Will 20:07
There's another one called Dr. Benjamin Rush. He was in America, he made the tranquilliser chair.
Rod 20:15
that's already a good start. Alright.
Will 20:18
Look, the boundary between a lot of these and waterboarding is very, very, very small. Anyway, he'd strap a person into a chair, and there was this sort of box thing around their head. And I think it had it had holes at the bottom, and then they just pour water into it. So it's basically
Rod 20:35
that is fucking waterboarding. I mean, you might as well put rats in there as well and see what else you can do. That's just like, oh good God
Will 20:42
no, there's no science in that, you know, at least we've proven that you punish people in water and they're cured. Like you, there's no rat cure.
Rod 20:42
You don't know that. Wait till I do my next episode. It's all about the rat cure.
Will 20:55
But basically, you know, he'd strap a person in, put the box around their head, pour water over them. And he'd apply it for 15 to 20 minutes and finally threatening the patient with death unless they repented or cured them. So half of the these things is just threatening people. And torturing
Rod 21:16
I know a better way to do this. Hey, if you don't get better, we're gonna put you in this device. And if that doesn't work, we're gonna kill you. How are you feeling now? Way better thanks!
Will 21:25
It's wonderful! You're so nice. I love your treatment.
Rod 21:31
I'm not crazy. My husband's a hottie. Like, I literally go through it all first, and then go, and it could get bad for you. Fucking monsters, they just wanted to do it.
Will 21:43
They did. And you know what's weird? I mean, yes, there might have been people who thought this was I think van Helmont thought there was there was some sort of plunge of water did the thing. There's definitely a whole bunch of torturing. But there's also there were also people that are like, Oh, no, this is great. Because it leaves no mark on the body. Which is just exactly exactly why the CIA were using it as well.
Rod 22:04
you had surgery, but we don't believe any scars, because that'll prove we've done it like, you know, you're not ashamed of that.
Will 22:08
No, you're you're not. it says something doesn't it? Is it's like, oh, we don't want anyone to see that. We did this. Yeah, it's not a treatment. It's not a treatment.
Rod 22:17
Nope, nope, nope, I'm thinking it's more of a hobby. And it ain't the person receiving its hobby. It could be to be fair, there's something for everyone out there. Maybe some people that's how they felt healthier.
Will 22:27
Just to put you back in the in the overall context. Next time you're standing in the shower, look up, there is a history here.
Rod 22:32
Okay, I will look up next time in the shower. But it's look, it's only Friday now. So that's gonna be a week at least?
Will 22:37
Well, I'll come to that, I'll come to that. I'll come to that a lot of the, let's call them psychiatrists. They're not qualified necessarily yet. They're starting to, they're starting to think architecturally. And so they would be building hospitals, asylums, things like that, where they would have a space, sort of three feet square shower size sort of thing, left in the flooring of galleries, which was designed for a form of showering. weirdly, they would have them open between multiple floors. So if it's like a three storey hospital, it would go from one down to the next down to the next. So you could sort of accelerate the water if you thought, Okay, this, this guy needs the full 35 foot treatment. Whereas this, this is a mild case of anxiety, just a 10 footer, or something like that.
Rod 23:21
Wow. So that would be a way like in millennia, hence, people will look through the rubble of our civilization, they'll go, Well, there's a big hole running down the middle of this building. It's either an elevator shaft or psychiatric institution,
Will 23:32
maybe maybe both. So that's one one thread. The idea that water had healing powers, and that getting it onto the head was a healing thing. So more and more people, particularly in the psychiatric industry, were thinking in this way. Then you get to other two other developments. The first was, well, not necessarily the first because they sort of happened in parallel, was that people working in prisons, which were allied with the asylums, were starting to think actually, showers are actually just useful for keeping people clean. Like, like, it's it's weird. It's weird. It took people a while they were like, no prisoners. Pretty gross. Like I imagine getting all of your prisoners all into individual baths was probably really hard.
Rod 24:22
They probably didn't want that because of you know, un Jesus like behaviours
Will 24:27
or not enough rubber duckies or something like that. But showers you could they could go in the showers and you as a prison guard could watch what they're doing
Rod 24:35
yeah you could
Will 24:36
so you get like a prison in France was the first one where they thought you know, let's build some showers. We can pump water down on people. But there certainly were some scandals of prisoners dying through showers. So this this picture, the Negro convict,
Rod 24:56
Oh God,
Will 24:57
being showered to death um,
Rod 25:00
Oh, my God.
Will 25:01
So I think that I think that was actually a protest picture showing how barbaric such a thing was. And this was in English prison.
Rod 25:12
So we got a dude sitting in a chair in a kind of apparatus. It has a big, basically sort of fish tank arrangement strapped around from the neck up. It's all sealed I assume he's got like a funnel on top of that. And a very just and righteous looking fellow on the outside controlling the hose. It's fucking barbaric. And also again, if you if you want to kill people, like get on with it.
Will 25:37
Yeah. But but you can see, you know, there is that little trend of there might be some people in this that are goodies but there is definitely horrible people that like, oh, there's a nice way to torture people. I could just hide this terrible thing that I want to do to people.
Rod 25:51
Ah, get a new hobby like learn macramie
Will 25:56
But , Rod you're obviously thinking listen to you're obviously thinking, what the hell? What the hell, man? You said, this is the history of the shower. And you're just telling me about 19th century torture devices in insane asylums and prisons? How did this thing go domestic? The first domestic mechanical shower seems to have been a similar sort of time. But this guy was he patented because he made a machine that that got the water to the top and down to the bottom.
Rod 26:20
was it was pantented it as a washing device or how to keep your teenagers in line?
Will 26:26
No, no, this one was for washing. So it's sort of a box down the bottom. It's got four sort of bamboo poles, actually, they are metal, but they were painted to look like bamboo. And up the top was a box and you would pump the water from down the bottom. So it would collect all the water under you there, then you give a little pump and it goes to the top. And then you let it out and water would go over you again. So you pump a few times in the same water we go over, you know. doesn't sound that pleasant but it shows that the people were interested in the idea of having some sort of shower at home. Usually people would have this in the kitchen because it was closest to where you could get some warm water which which was seen as not the worst.
Rod 27:09
I get the logic. But yeah, shower where you're cooking your pasta,
Will 27:15
people were a little bit different back then. there was a similar thing called the English Regency shell. And some of them had portable versions where they might might have a pump or they might not. And so they were an idea in the early 1800s that people would go rather than having a bath, I would be a showering person, but it didn't catch on that quickly.
Rod 27:36
I get it. I mean, people are more suspicious of adults who prefer a bath for cleaning purposes. Like for relaxation, I get. But sitting in a bucket of water and rubbing all your dirt off.
Will 27:47
It doesn't sound logical doesn't sound
Rod 27:49
like I feel like some of it will get back on
Will 27:51
in the middle of the 19th century, it starts to take off as a bit of an idea that people people would have a shower like that's a thing that people would do. One of the one of the earliest seems to have been Charles Dickens. I know right, he spent a summer on the Isle of Wight, which probably would have been quite nice. He was working on the novel David Copperfield at the time. And he rigged up a contraption on the beach to channel a waterfall into a perforated tub. So there's a waterfall there and he's got like a pipe or something like that, that turns it into his own little shower. I assume he's gone for a swim, and he's coming back. And he's like, he's cleaning himself off. Which, you know, when you get when you go for a swim on the beach, and he rents off the salt waters. That's nice.
Rod 28:30
It is, it's pleasant. I mean, he could just stand under the waterfall, but you know, let's not get into details
Will 28:35
stop it. You hippy. No you gotta turn in his rainfall thing.
Rod 28:39
Yeah, of course. Of course. You're right. You're right.
Will 28:40
He loved the sensation so much that he had an expensive bathroom built in his house in London with both a tub and a separate cold shower. It became a positive necessity of life for me. And so he was sort of early on in the people that are like advocating like showers are just awesome. And we should we should all do them. There's a historian of the 19th century, Margaret Ogle, she reckons the sheer whimsy of showers became a bit of a fad. People were in a time we're not constrained by municipal ordinances. So bathroom fixtures had not become standardised. They had they had all sorts of different things. They had showers that aimed only at the torso, showers that were powered powered by foot pedals, you could sort of crank them down the bottom your foots, they had had rental services, where people would you would, you know call up you send a letter or something like that, and you would rent a shower and they turn up with a shower and towels and things like that. Turn up in your house. Yeah, in fact, I love this story. People would prank each other with it. I don't know if it's to say you're unclean or something like it's like, shower service.
Rod 29:46
Bucks parties. We're gonna get on the back of this covered waggon pulled by three stinking horses. We got a portable shower for you.
Will 29:52
There were definitely people that were like falling straight on the head is not great. So a couple of things they did that they invented early shower caps which were full on conical things like
Rod 30:03
helmets
Will 30:04
like as a conehead, like as in full on a spike that goes in there. And that would that would get the water to not hit your head.
Rod 30:11
it would look awesome
Will 30:12
because if you've got a good head, you don't want to make your head go wrong, like that's for the insane people.
Rod 30:16
That's why my head is so big. It got beaten up by showers too much as a child. It swolled and never came down. It's true, I should have worn my conical helmet
Will 30:25
They also had a whole bunch of showers that aimed at different parts of the body like that there was there was one that was called a cage shower like it had like a few different pipes going around you and it would sort of spray you from all sides and just you know, just sort of, you'd stand in the middle and get sprayed, your head didn't get done or anything like that.
Rod 30:42
I want the head as well. But what I'm after is the Under shower. You know what I'm talking about?
Will 30:46
Yeah, strike from the bottom,
Rod 30:48
the volcano the eruptor. How clean do you feel? Painfully thank you!
Will 30:59
I don't know if you want your bum juice getting up into your head juice though
Rod 31:02
bum juice and your head juice? We're gonna have to talk anatomy in an episode about whether how things connect?
Will 31:08
Well, no, what I'm saying is that if the water is coming down from above, then all your face grime washes onto your bum and down to your feet, that's fine. Whereas if you're if you're flooding from below, then your bum grime is getting pushed up up
Rod 31:24
into your stomach, and then from there into the lungs, then it comes out your eyes. I know, I know, I understand that. I understand that concern. That's where you have a volume control. But I think it under shell sounds great.
Will 31:36
Just to close off the sort of 19th century. just at the end of this it started to become something that landlords would compete over. not compete, but it became a way that will get people to move into your your flats or whatever it is to say that there is hot water, and that there are showers and so they would invest in that and that will get returned in these people coming back.
Rod 31:59
Make sense? I mean, that helps me now too whenever I rent a house if it doesn't say there's hot water in the shower I'm put off. I feel disinclined
Will 32:06
Believe me. I don't think I would I at least $10 Less
Rod 32:10
10 dollars. What's the rent now? It's like $9 million a week in Canberra?
Will 32:13
I think so i think so something like that. Anyway, things really kicked off in the 20th century, it might have been new building techniques. It might have been middle class people that wanted to look different from factory people, they wanted to look cleaner. And it might have been advertising. In fact, it may well have been. some people have argued, Americans obsession with showers was largely cultivated by the advertising industry, which capitalised on social anxieties about body odour and bad breath as more people began working together in closer quarters of factories and offices.
Rod 32:46
So it's fair to say many of America and other countries obsessions are based on advertising.
Will 32:51
Well, yes, yes. I mean, America is just the example that we've got for this bit. But it's almost like the production of social anxieties maybe drove what our culture became.
Rod 33:03
Might be worth some money.
Will 33:04
I love this ad so much. It's for I'm not sure if it's a needle shower, which is a similar sort of thing. But he's got one of these showers that's pointing directly doesn't go in his head, it's coming towards him. And the way that he is thrusting towards this thing. He's clearly getting cleaned right on the front from four jets that are coming directly towards
Rod 33:24
look how proudly he's thrusting his chest and I'm assuming other things forward into the wash.
Will 33:29
Do you know this is this is like a 1910 ad or something like that. And clearly he is getting joy out of getting getting blasted straight
Rod 33:38
he's getting manly good posture joy. because no, his elbows are back, his chin is slightly down, his chest is thrusting. That's how I shower. Or I will
Will 33:49
I don't know why I don't have that shower. that feels that feels like that, that you will be more something if you have that shower.
Rod 33:56
I don't know why we don't have more of them around in general. Like I know you can get wacky extra jets and stuff. But I'm surprised it's not more common.
Will 34:02
It's weird. I think we've become more conservative. So early on soapmakers, so mostly they're selling soap for either way of cleaning clothes and industrial uses. The Association of American soap and glycerin producers established something called the cleanliness Institute in 1927. the Institute could promote keeping clean and by extension, soap consumption. They went around giving storybooks in schools, posters, guides, teachers were to write letters to parents about cleanliness. The Institute reported on a school where students were given wash tickets after washing their hands only by presenting these tickets could they even enter the school cafeteria
Rod 34:45
maybe we need to do more kids stories about vaccination and not voting for terrible humans.
Will 34:51
You know I like being clean but the idea that it was sold to us as a as a bill of goods
Rod 34:56
Yeah, and look now you're making me doubt everything about being clean. maybe at the end of this, I'm just not going to bother anymore.
Will 35:02
I'll come to that. We're asking about showers. So this is the famous shower of of Lyndon Johnson, president after Kennedy. And apparently, when he moved into the White House, he was like, one of the first things is I want the shower like I've got it home. I want water charging out of multiple nozzles in every direction with needle like intensity, and hugely powerful force.
Rod 35:23
Yes
Will 35:24
we want special special nozzles front and back, one pointing at the dick and balls. And one pointing at the butt, like one from behind the front.
Rod 35:37
was he the mad angry dude who used to take meetings while he's having a dump. Johnson.
Will 35:42
Yes, he did.
Rod 35:42
Yeah, he was he was a body positive kind of guy.
Will 35:45
He was. he was also a hero of the civil rights movement. So weird, you know?
Rod 35:49
Yeah, I clean and civil.
Will 35:51
I do like to imagine this, this sort of weirdly, uptight, cranky guy having just having this dandy old shower washing his bits. Sadly, Nixon got rid of it straightaway as soon as he moved into the Whitehouse. But you can go to the Lyndon Johnson presidential library, where they've got a recreation of the presidential shower with the nozzles. I don't think you're allowed to use it. But I would like to
Rod 36:18
do you know where that one is?
Will 36:19
I feel like it could be in Texas, but I don't know. Sadly.
Rod 36:23
I want the biggest, most powerful shower in the world. I want to do my bum and my flagpole?
Will 36:30
Do you know? I wouldn't mind the most powerful shower in the world. That sounds awesome to me
Rod 36:35
though, I reckon they would actually give you piercings in places you don't want to be pierced.
Will 36:38
Yeah, probably as we've talked, you know, it could be a torture device.
Rod 36:41
Just notch it down a level. Yeah. Just one or two.
Will 36:43
All right. What are showers like today? who's your guests? The world's most frequent showerers.
Rod 36:50
The Lithuanians.
Will 36:52
Na, man, you gotta go warmer. Like it's, you know, in fairness, it's it's likely to be a warm country thing.
Rod 37:00
Sumatra.
Will 37:01
No, it's Brazil, according to the World Population review. Number one for shower. 99% take a shower every week, which isn't that much. But more importantly, the average is 14 showers a week. So the average is the average is people taking two showers a day.
Rod 37:19
Okay. If you're hot and sweaty and you've been doing all that, that saucy dancing on the beach and getting sand in your tootsies
Will 37:26
Sure. Australians pretty high. 80% of men and 90% of women claim they have a shower every day. The world average is five times a week. I don't have the worst for countries I've got the worst for the least showered person.
Rod 37:41
Is that the least washed or the least showered?
Will 37:43
Well both
Rod 37:44
the Indian Sadhu had the hair that was matted down through his body.
Will 37:49
I think there are a bunch of Sadhus who probably go for this but this this guy just because of his age, he lived to 94 and hadn't had a shower in 60 years, hadn't washed at all. his neighbours finally convinced him to have a wash and he died soon after. though he was 94 and he smoked multiple cigarettes at the same time,
Rod 38:05
which also is probably his only thing keeping him alive as all the bacteria in the gunge, his joints probably shattered.
Will 38:12
But I wanted to go the other way. I don't have a world record because I don't know if that exists. But I did find some interesting stories of people who, who took a lot of showers. in the American Journal of case reports. A 26 year old Caucasian male who presented with a one week history of severe colicky epigastric pain, stomach pain, heralded by significant nausea. He had vomiting and he admitted to smoking four joints or marijuana cigarettes every day for the last two years.
Rod 38:40
Naughty man.
Will 38:42
He had four similar episodes last month. during the admissions he would take, his nausea was relieved by taking hot showers of which he took up to 15 times per day, sometimes for more than an hour. Seems like a lot.
Rod 38:54
But so who's ripped all the time, though? I mean, you know, really hot, yummy shower when you're super stoned. I've heard an acquaintance that I only met ever once told me that's really quite pleasant.
Will 39:05
So the first glimmer I saw is you know, on Reddit, someone saying Am I addicted to showering? I always feel the need to take a shower. If I have a slight headache, I take a shower. If I feel sad, I take a shower. If I'm mad I take a shower. I just always want to take a shower. My roommates are starting to point it out. Am I addicted to showering?
Rod 39:21
You got something going on champ?
Will 39:23
When you look at the information about how much people do shower and how much dermatologists reckon we should shower, maybe we might all be a little bit addicted to it, and we might be doing it too much.
Rod 39:35
Dermatologists don't get into smell right.
Will 39:39
You know, like this sucks to me. I love my shell. But there's a bunch of people, anyone that's looking at the microbiome on your skin is saying, you know we shower away too much. A lot of the recommendations from dermatologists now like showering a couple of times a week is good. More than that is probably not necessary, particularly if you have a clean job and you're not getting terribly sweating
Rod 40:03
we don't have that because our job is full of dirty, dirty thoughts.
Will 40:06
probably probably. there's an assistant professor of dermatology at the University of Toronto. She reckons people are showering way too much and washing too intensely when they do. She's like so when you're in the shower or the bath do you need to wash your forearm? Even water alone, especially hot water slowly strips away the oils in the outer layers of the skin that help preserve moisture. Their argument is yes, there is there's definitely cleanliness and hygiene that should be followed. But most of your skin doesn't actually get bad. And what we're doing is stripping away a lot of these oils and a lot of this good bacteria that's causing problems. So there's that there's a bunch of studies. So one was by San Diego dermatologist Richard Gallo, his team did two things they they covered a group of mice with back with a bacterium that's present on most human skin. And another group got a bath of a different strain of the same bacteria. So basically how how much intensity of that bacteria is on the mice. They all go put them out in the sun got a suntan, and those coated with one type of the Staph epidermidis developed fewer skin cancers. So they're saying that the bacteria is serving a protective role. Another one eczema patients, and they sprayed them with a particular bacteria that is found commonly on human skin. And they found that that reduced a lot of the eczema in fact there's a bunch of people that are that are selling live bacteria for people to spray on their skin in an attempt to make a more
Rod 41:31
course. I mean we got we got faecal transplants, we got people started talking about you know, eating tapeworms again for weight reduction, why not live bacteria schmear on yourself. but this is why I reckon the army got it right. Like the the Army, the Army Reserve when I was in there 1000 years ago. You just need an APC mate, armpits crotch.
Will 41:48
Well, I think that's what a lot these people is arguing. So I read this guy, James Hamblin, he's a he's writer for The Atlantic. And he's he's an academic at the Yale School of Public Health. So he's legit. And he's telling the story of when he quit showering. You know, in the course of this research, I started using less soap and less shampoo and less deodorant and showering less. I went from every day to every other day to every three and now I've pretty much stopped altogether. I still wash my hands all the time. He was writing this during the pandemic so you got to be clear. I still wash my hands all the time to stop communicable diseases. I rinse off elsewhere, when I'm visibly dirty, like after a run when I have to wash my nuts off my face. At first I did smell bad. Especially as I went without deodorant. Eventually, everything sort of settled in he reckons to a natural rhythm. You stop smelling bad and you become, I don't know, as nature intended. Now, this is totally hippie argument. But there's a chunk where you go, you know,
Rod 42:49
no, I got a personal experience. So for many years, I never use shampoo, like I rinse my hair and stuff, but I never shampooed my noggin. And my hair wasn't particularly oily, it didn't particularly smell like there was nothing It was just when I started getting more carried away with product and stuff that I'd use it more there was probably a couple of weeks where it was a bit mungy, bit oily, but nothing terrible. And then it didn't seem to need it. Like the hair was fine, just getting rinsed under the too frequent showers. so I have a small taste of that.
Will 43:15
There is a whole strand of the hippie, the Paleo, sort of thinking that this is how we evolved and stuff like that. But on the other side, there is a whole strand of pseudo science, underpinning the fact that we need to have showers all the time. You know, it comes from a really weird place. And then it's pushed by an advertising agency. I think that I love showers, but I'm starting to look a little bit differently. I'm thinking you know,
Rod 43:46
what are you gonna do man? come on. Say it here first
Will 43:48
no way man. I can't quit my showers. I can't quit. I can't quit. I love them too much. I love them too much. They addicted me. like they got me you know other advertising industrial complex, they they made me feel good in the shower. And that's that's the
Rod 44:02
I think it's just the sensation. What like I said, I mean, I don't I don't have a bath to get clean when I have a bath. It's just because baths are pleasant. And I mean showers are often similar. There are times when you kind of like oh bit cold, bit weary whatever. I'll have a little shell shell and it feels wonderful.
Will 44:16
Yeah, there you go. So I think all of that feeling nice is probably good, but there probably are some negative consequences for your skin.
Rod 44:22
Yeah, and how far do you take it? I mean, it's a tricky one as so many of these things. Because how far do you take this stuff? You know, and what's it for like if you're washing off some good stuff, but that's giving away some bad stuff. And there's other things to do to make up for it. Like getting you bacterial spray like we're all going to do from now on.
Will 44:39
Look, I think here's the lesson you know, don't use the shower as a torture device. Damn it, probably don't shower 15 times a day, there's probably a limit and pay attention to soap you know, just remember that soap is not always inherently positive.
Rod 44:54
Thinking now shower manufacturers have to you know, you've got on those. When you get a blind with a cord. It says you know don't leave this dangling because kids will hang themselves and the shower should have don't use not not intended as torture device
Will 45:06
intended as a device to you know, proudly proudly get washed from the front like that. oh my god I could do that.
Rod 45:12
Oh you totally would too when you wake up in the morning and just getting thrusted and you need to thrust it to sort of counteract the sheer weight of the water pressure so I mean it's reasonably
Will 45:25
I wouldn't mind one from the front one from the back to just getting probably cleaned
Rod 45:32
I'm not at all against that I mean I'd like I mean I'm one of it's kind of like the hot you know that all toothpaste story that the only reason it tastes like medicine is because otherwise people don't believe were properly clean. I want to showers a similar.
Will 45:42
maybe. Anyway there you go.
Rod 45:44
Yeah, I look I like the modern shower more than the torturing device. Sorry. Healing devices.
