醒一醒!歷史並不如你想的那麼美好(下)

onal Hygiene In The 18th Century Was Abysmal

5.十八世紀英格蘭的個人衛生超級糟糕

Imagine living in a society where people routinely fart in public, blow their noses into their hands, spit indoors, and relieve themselves in front of company. Sound like something from an OCD nightmare? It's exactly what you'd experience if you took your first time-traveling vacation in 18th-century England.

想像在一個社會裏，人們習慣性地在公共場合放屁和擤鼻涕、在室內隨地吐痰、在別人面前隨意大小便。聽起來像強迫症的噩夢嗎？如果你乘坐時光機回到十八世紀的英格蘭，你會發現那些都是真的。

For most people, hygiene was nothing more than a fancy word they couldn't spell. The average man on the street had breath that could strip paint, and social niceties were unheard of. It was far from uncommon to eat a meal with your hands, wipe those hands down your shirt, and then fart loudly before spitting a wodge of mucus onto the floor. But what if you limited your journey to the homes of the upper classes? Sorry, but they were no better. While conversing after dinner, men would often pull out a chamber pot and relieve themselves in front of if you spent your entire vacation avoiding other humans at all costs, you'd still encounter their disgusting by-products. Human waste was so prevalent that any food, water, or milk you could get hold of was probably contaminated in the grossest way possible.

對於大多數人來說，"衛生"只不過是一個他們都不會拼寫的新奇詞彙。街上的行人呼吸着比油漆味還要刺鼻的氣味，社交禮儀這種東西更是聞所未聞。當你看到有人用手抓飯來吃，吃完飯直接把油擦到衣服上，然後在隨地吐一口痰之前放一記響屁，千萬不要感到驚奇。你在想如果把旅途設定在貴族的家中情況會不會好一些？對不起，答案是不會。在貴族的家裏，男人在飯後交談時會拿出便壺直接在客人面前解手。就算你使盡全身力氣把自己與當時的人類隔絕，你也避免不了他們生活中的各種噁心的廢物。在當時，人類的垃圾是如此猖狂，以至於任何能夠接觸到的食物、水、或牛奶都會以它們最髒的形象出現在你面前。

ent Mesopotamia Was Crawling With Pests

4.古美索不達米亞害蟲滿地爬

Like Pompeii and medieval London, ancient Mesopotamia had little in the way of waste disposal and sanitation. The inevitable result was pests on an enormous scale. Unlike in London or Pompeii, we know that feral animals were actually encouraged by the Mesopotamians. It turned out they had a part to play in society: garbage disposal.

跟龐培和中世紀倫敦一樣，古代美索不達米亞在垃圾處理和衛生系統方面都不怎麼樣。那麼不可避免的結果就是害蟲氾濫成災了。我們知道，跟龐培和倫敦不一樣的是，美索不達米亞人是鼓勵野生動物的。這樣的結果就是野生動物成爲了社會中重要的一員，垃圾處理工。

To deal with piles of refuse, cities across Mesopotamia allowed feral dogs and scavenging pigs to run the streets. We don't just mean in the outlying and poor districts. Teeth and bones collected by archaeological expeditions show these animals got absolutely everywhere. Under the Hittites, feral pigs were even encouraged inside the palace of the disgustingly, the widespread nature of garbage also meant every centimeter of your typical Babylonian city was crawling with big fat rats, fleas, and other disease-carrying pests. As a result, infection by plague and a horrible, messy death was an ever-present worry, and this worry was compounded by the presence of nasty, food-borne parasites like trichinellosis.

爲了處理大量垃圾，美索不達米亞各城市允許野狗和野豬在街上任意覓食。這種現象不僅僅出現在邊緣的平窮地區。考古隊從他們所收集的牙齒和骨頭髮現，這些動物遍佈美索不達米亞。在希泰族，甚至連國王的皇宮內也養着野豬來處理垃圾。更噁心的是，滿大街的垃圾意味着你所知道的每一個巴比倫城市都爬滿了肥碩的老鼠、跳蚤和攜帶病菌的害蟲。所以，在當時染上瘟疫和死亡的恐懼是一個長期存在的、困擾着人們的問題。而骯髒、食物滋生的寄生蟲比如旋毛蟲的存在則更加加深了這個隱患。

gians Stuffed Their Mouths With Dead People's Teeth

3.喬治亞人愛把死人的牙塞嘴裏

In 1815, two of the greatest armies on Earth met for the apocalyptic Battle of Waterloo, a bruising engagement that killed roughly 50,000 men. Aside from stopping Napoleon in his tracks and shaping European history, the battle had a strangely gross effect on one school of medicine: dentistry.

1815年，世界上兩支最強的軍隊展開了災難性的滑鐵盧戰爭，造成了大約五萬士兵的死亡。這場戰爭除了阻止拿破崙重建歐洲的進程，還有一個極其重大的影響，那就是醫學中的牙醫領域。

Prior to Waterloo, rotten teeth were one of the most feared ailments in British society. With no such thing as fillings or regular check-ups, bad teeth ruined many people's lives. But when the battle was over, Europe suddenly found itself in possession of thousands of young corpses—each with a mouth stuffed full of healthy teeth. What followed was one of the grossest booms in product history. Pieced together from dead men's jaws, dentures suddenly became widely available on the market. The Georgians went nuts for them. For decades, people willingly wore the smiles of men killed on the battlefield in place of their own. It wasn't until Claudius Ash began manufacturing porcelain teeth in the 1830s that this gruesome trend finally fell out of fashion.

在滑鐵盧戰爭之前，爛牙是英國最可怕的疾病之一。因爲沒有補牙的材料及定期的牙齒檢查，當時許多有爛牙的人都十分難受。滑鐵盧戰爭結束後，歐洲人突然意識到許多戰死的年輕士兵嘴裏有他們需要的健康的牙齒。接踵而來的是製造業歷史的一個繁榮階段。自從將從死者內頜取出的假牙接合在一起後，其在市場上便廣泛流通開來。喬治亞人簡直都要瘋了。接下來的好幾十年人們都心甘情願地用那些死在戰場的士兵的牙替換自己本身的爛牙。這個奇怪的浪潮直到十八世紀三十年代克勞狄·艾什發明陶瓷牙之後才退去。

et Paper Used To Be Horrifying

2.可怕的廁紙

As people who probably grew up with indoor flushing toilets and paper marketed as "quilted" or "extra comfort," it can be hard to appreciate how difficult our ancestors had it. Go back less than 100 years and using the bathroom used to be downright unpleasant. One of the most general methods for wiping yourself was to use an old newspaper or catalog. The old Farmer's Almanac even came with a hole so it could be hung up in outhouses. Not that we can blame our grandparents for avoiding toilet paper. Until the 1930s, it was totally possible to buy paper that was full of splinters.

生活在一個有自動沖洗馬桶和"柔軟"、"超舒適"廁紙的時代，現在的人們也許很難理解古時候人們的心情。一百年以前，上廁所對人們來說是非常不舒服的。比如當時他們用的紙通常是舊報紙和雜誌。老雜誌《農夫年曆》特意弄了個帶洞的設計，好讓它掛在廁所裏。十九世紀三十年代之前，帶夾子的廁紙是非常常見的。

In 1935, Northern Tissue (now Quilted Northern) made a killing advertising its toilet paper with the tagline "Splinter-Free!" The sheer success of the product shows us that even by the time FDR was in the White House, plenty of people were legitimately worried that wiping with the wrong paper would leave them sporting splinters in a very tender place. It's only in the last 80-odd years that companies have finally overcome this painful obstacle.

1935年，Northern Tissue（現在的Quilted Tissue）做了一個暴利廁紙廣告，廣告標語寫着"Splinter-Free!"。該產品的成功表明，即使富蘭克林·德蘭諾·羅斯福在任期間，白宮裏仍有許多人擔心用錯廁紙會使他們的菊花不舒服。在過去的80多年裏，該公司才解決了這個問題。

n Toilets Were Terrifying

1.喪心病狂的羅馬廁所

If you're one of the many people who has a thing about peeing in front of others, be glad you didn't live in ancient Rome. Back then, the words "public restroom" were taken very literally. Up to 50 people would sit in a circle doing their business in plain view of one another and, when they were finished, wipe themselves on a communal sponge as dirty and disease-ridden as, well, a shared butt-wiper. Sound like the worst toilet experience you can imagine? We're only just getting started.

如果你是衆多對公衆場合小便心有餘悸的人之一，就該慶幸你沒有生活在古代羅馬。那時候，公衆廁所就真是公衆的。廁所裏，至少五十個人圍成一個圈，每個人上廁所的時候都一覽無餘；完事後，他們再把髒兮兮甚至帶着病菌的公共海綿當作廁紙使用。聽起來像是你能夠想象到的最可怕的廁所經歷？我們纔剛剛開始變得有點恐怖而已。

Although Roman sewers were advanced for the time, they were woefully inadequate by our standards. With no U-bend to speak of, toilets opened directly into dark drainage channels through which insects and what Discover Magazine calls "biting creatures" frequently emerged. Thanks to the buildup of methane, it was also totally possible for jets of naked flame to suddenly explode out the holes. This made the simple act of going to the toilet like playing the worst version of Russian roulette imaginable. Unsurprisingly, all this nastiness made the average Roman very wary of the toilet. Archaeological excavations have uncovered magic spells scrawled on bathroom walls to ward off demons and images of the goddess Fortuna designed to bring good luck. When your trip to the restroom could result in your ass getting bitten or badly burned, you probably need all the luck you could get.

雖然羅馬的下水道是當時最先進的，但跟我們現代的下水道系統相比，簡直就是差太多。沒有"U"型彎頭，廁所直接連通滋生昆蟲和《發現雜誌》稱做咬人生物的排水渠。由於沼氣的堆積，時不時會有明火從排水渠噴射出來。這使得人們上一趟廁所就跟玩最險的一局俄羅斯輪盤賭一樣。毫無疑問的，這些會引起疾病的髒東西使羅馬人對待廁所非常謹慎。考古挖掘家在古羅馬廁所裏發現用來抵禦惡魔的神祕符咒和幸運女神福爾圖娜的神像。當一個人上一趟廁所屁股都會被蟲咬或被火燒的時候，他大概需要一整個世界的幸運。

翻譯:哈利小王子 來源:前十網