One of the most shocking aspects of life and etiquette in Elizabethan England is hygiene. Can you imagine living in a world without running water or plumbing? Where bathing was rare and toilets were nonexistent? A world without toothbrushes? These are all things that the people who lived during Shakespeare's lifetime had to deal with. Hygiene has come a long way since 1600. In Elizabethan England, hygiene depended on your social class. You got what you could afford.
When considering hygiene in Elizabethan England, the first thing that comes to mind is the odor. In towns and cities that were expanding, it was difficult to dispose of bodily waste (Hitchings 11). Lower class people in these urban areas and city slums had no plumbing or toilets, so they had to use a chamber pot and then dump their excrement and urine into the gutters (Mortimer 237). If there was no chamber pot …show more content…
Toothbrushes and regular trips to the dentist didn't exist in the 1600's, and Shakespeare once wrote, "Her break stinks with eating toasted cheese" (Mortimer 245). People did try to clean their teeth, but they had very different ways of doing it. One option was to pick them with a piece of quill or wood. You could also remove plaque with a “tooth cloth” made of wet linen (Mortimer 245). It was recommended to clean your mouth every day with water or homemade mouthwash. Because many people, including Queen Elizabeth, had yellow teeth, there were ways to whiten them. For example, you could use a tooth blanch, or a powdered cuttlefish bone. First, you would rub the powder on, then you would wash your mouth out with white wine and sulfuric acid (Mortimer 245). Many people ended up with rotten teeth. If a toothache got too bad, there were three options for getting the tooth pulled: You could go to a tooth-drawer, who used a special lever, or a surgeon or blacksmith (Mortimer
When considering hygiene in Elizabethan England, the first thing that comes to mind is the odor. In towns and cities that were expanding, it was difficult to dispose of bodily waste (Hitchings 11). Lower class people in these urban areas and city slums had no plumbing or toilets, so they had to use a chamber pot and then dump their excrement and urine into the gutters (Mortimer 237). If there was no chamber pot …show more content…
Toothbrushes and regular trips to the dentist didn't exist in the 1600's, and Shakespeare once wrote, "Her break stinks with eating toasted cheese" (Mortimer 245). People did try to clean their teeth, but they had very different ways of doing it. One option was to pick them with a piece of quill or wood. You could also remove plaque with a “tooth cloth” made of wet linen (Mortimer 245). It was recommended to clean your mouth every day with water or homemade mouthwash. Because many people, including Queen Elizabeth, had yellow teeth, there were ways to whiten them. For example, you could use a tooth blanch, or a powdered cuttlefish bone. First, you would rub the powder on, then you would wash your mouth out with white wine and sulfuric acid (Mortimer 245). Many people ended up with rotten teeth. If a toothache got too bad, there were three options for getting the tooth pulled: You could go to a tooth-drawer, who used a special lever, or a surgeon or blacksmith (Mortimer