02x19 - Horrible Hygiene

[bunniefuu]

[upbeat music]
[electrical buzzing]

- [Henry] Did you know that
there was a time

when you went to the barber

and your hair wasn't the
only thing getting cut?

- They could lop off a
limb in three minutes.

- At the time you're
getting your hair cut,

also have your leeches applied.

It's a one-stop shop.

- Or if you wanted fresh breath,

all you had to do was light up.

- So the solution
for all the problems

that cigarettes caused
was more cigarettes.

What a ballsy move!

You have to admire it in a way.

- Or when the sting you felt
from mom's antiseptic

was the least of your problems?

- We're basically
just dosing children

for average everyday
cuts with mercury.

Over and over again, here's
some poison to treat that wound.

- Little did I know that I
would be carrying this mercury

in my body, but it didn't sting,

and that's the important part.

- These are the things we
used to do for fun,

for money,

or maybe out of boredom,

that we'll never see again.

Were they dangerous?

Certainly.

Deadly?

Occasionally.

But boy, wasn't it exciting?

Today, there are not many
things people find as unhygienic

as a public restroom.

But if you think
those are unpleasant,

the ones in the 1800s would
make you wish you'd never

stop wearing diapers.

- In 1900 in Manhattan, there
are not enough bathrooms.

In tenements, there's only one
required per every 20 people.

It's a huge challenge for
people that just have places

to do their business
and to get rid of it.

- [Henry] Few New
Yorkers have access

to private indoor plumbing
to flush it all away.

So many turn to the classic
solution, chamber pots.

- A chamber pot is a ceramic

or metal vessel that you kept
in a room where you slept,

and it is where
you went potty in.

- They've existed
since antiquity,

and for millennia,
they've been the quickest

and easiest way to
do your business.

And they still exist,

especially for city
dwellers at this time.

- [Natalia] If it's cold or
there's a blizzard

or you're just tired,

you can just go to the bathroom
right there in your room.

- [Henry] Some sellers market
upgraded models with chairs

and seats, making these
chamber pots a luxury item.

- [Hakeem] Even today,

a lot of people don't have
a bathroom in their bedroom.

Imagine you can just roll out
of bed, use a chamber pot,

roll right back into bed.

- [Austin] Chamber pots are
such a necessity.

We have an expression about it.

You don't have a pot to piss
in means you're so poor,

you can't afford a chamber pot.

- [Henry] But even
if you have one,

what happens after you've gone?

- [Austin] This thing's been
sitting in your room all night

filling up with you
and your partners

and maybe a couple
children's detritus.

So it's going to be festering.

The smell's not
going to be nice.

- And how do you even do
that when you're married?

You're going to watch
your wife tinkle in a pot

in the corner and then
leave it there all night.

Everything about
it sounds horrible.

- And so the result is that
if you wake up in the middle

of the night, you
better walk carefully

because there's a chamber
pot out there full

of something that you don't
want to put a foot in.

- [Austin] If you don't have
servants

and live up high,
congratulations,

you're your own
department of sanitation.

When it's time to do a
cleanup, open the window,

toss the contents out.

- If you were out in the
street, you could look up

and someone could
like throw a bucket

of urine over your head.

- [Martin] Or if you had
like a breezeway,

dump it in the breezeway rather

than out the front
of the building.

- These dumping places become
festering open cesspools.

Attracting vermin,
spreading disease.

Anywhere that has a frequency
of dumping is just gross.

- [Henry] And this isn't
just a few naughty neighbors

tossing their waste
into the street.

It's everyone.

- [Natalia] In the early 1900s,

there are more people living
in Manhattan than ever before.

In fact, more than today.

There are 100,000 people
living per square mile,

and in some places,
a thousand per acre.

- [Martin] A simple walk down
the street caused you to come

into contact with human
excrement everywhere.

That was something that
everyone had to live with.

Today, it's adorable
to hear people complain

about how the city is
dirty and it smells.

And I'm like,

"You have no idea what this
place used to be like."

- [Natalia] I mean, all those
period pieces with the gorgeous

dresses and the manners
and the propriety,

and yet they were all
pooping in chamber pots.

- [Henry] Chamber pots lead
to waste covering the streets,

but they're only an
option when you're home.

So what do you do when
nature calls away from home?

- [Hakeem] Today, we have public
restrooms everywhere.

But in the early 1900s,

all they have is the
dreaded public outhouse.

- [Natalia] Basically, these
public outhouses have

zero privacy.

A public outhouse
would basically be a

shack with a big pit inside

and then a wood
bench with holes in it,

sometimes up to 12 holes.

So just picture that, you're
going to go to the bathroom

and you're maybe sitting
with 11 of your friends,

colleagues, partners, who knows?

I actually don't
even know which one

of those people would be
worse to be doing this with.

- [Brian] I don't think that
people really understand

how many spiders like
to live in outhouses

because the flies
are attracted to it.

And the spiders are
attracted to the flies.

So it's the creepiest
thing of all time.

I would rather go in my
pants than go in an outhouse.

- [Hakeem] And the thing about
these public outhouses is

that they didn't invest a lot

of money into the
construction quality.

- [Natalia] Liquid waste will
seep in, the boards rot.

They smell terrible.
They are really pretty rickety.

- Things can go bad, you
probably heard the expression

when someone stays in
the bathroom a long time,

someone will yell, "What
did you do, fall in?"

Well, that actually happened.

- [Natalia] In 1904 in
Cincinnati, during school

recess, there's a big storm
and 30 school girls run

into the public
outhouse to take cover.

- [Hakeem] And the floor gives
way.

All the girls fall right
into the pit of human waste.

And of the 30, nine of
them end up drowning.

The incident becomes
national news

and it becomes known as the
Cincinnati Privy Disaster.

- [Henry] And falling in is far

from the only outhouse hazard.

- At this time in the
South, it's extremely hot.

It's extremely muggy.

People either don't have shoes

or they don't want to wear them,

and so they end up walking
to the outhouse barefoot.

- [Hakeem] Going into the
outhouse barefoot is gross

for many reasons,

but one you probably aren't
aware of is hookworms.

Hookworms are these tiny
parasitic worms that enter

through the skin of your foot.

Having hookworms can
lead to anemia, fatigue,

or stunted growth.

- [Henry] Luckily,

modern plumbing eventually
arrives to save the day.

- [Martin] Indoor plumbing
is civilization.

It's just that simple.

We mark a profound difference
in the lived experience

from even a hundred years
ago by our use of plumbing.

It makes our lives
vastly more sanitary

and therefore
vastly more healthy.

- For Americans back in the day,

surviving the outhouse
was only step one.

Step two was finding a way

to clean up afterwards
without serious bodily injury.

- The quest to find something

to wipe your behind with is
as old as civilization itself.

The ancient Greeks, for example,
would use shards of pottery

or even small stones.

- By the 1700s, the printing
press has made newspapers

and political pamphlets cheap

and easy to make all
through the colonies.

So that means there's
a lot of paper.

And guess what all those
colonists are using that paper

for after they've
finished reading with it?

- Using paper for this
purpose became so common

that people started referring
to these kind of pages

as bumfodder, which
is pretty hilarious

because if you're trying to
tell someone what you think

about their politics, just
wipe your keister with it,

you know, let them have it.

- [Henry] Fortunately,
it's only a matter of time

until American
innovation strikes again.

- In 1891, the first perforated
toilet paper is patented.

And then what starts to appear
in households looks a lot

closer to what we know
as toilet paper today.

- [Henry] Close, but with one
very noticeable difference.

- [Rutledge] Toilet paper is
made from wood pulp,

but back then, if that
wood pulp wasn't really,

really refined, you would
find some larger little pieces

of wood in there, which
we would probably refer

to as a splinter.

And I can't think of a
more unpleasant place

to get a splinter.

- Splinters in your butt,
not something you want.

But this is such a common
problem that one manufacturer,

when they've sort of solved it,

one of their big marketing
things is they put it right

on the package, splinter-free.

- [Rutledge] Which that really
feels like the just lowest,

the bottom of the promises.

Everyone's toilet paper
should be splinter-free.

- [Jason] This is equivalent to
like, "Hey, buy our bath towels.

They don't have glass
shards in them."

- [Rutledge] And some people are
having to warn that certain

kinds of toilet paper can
basically send you to surgery.

Like that's how harsh
this world really is.

- [Kavitha] Think about how
resilient you had to be back

then if you were using like
splintered toilet paper

and then just going
about your day.

I think we are soft
compared to that.

As is our toilet paper.

- Toilet paper continued
to get refined,

literally over the
next few years.

By the 1930s,

you had the soft splinter-free
version we all know

and love today.

- In the 20th century,
we made huge progress

on some of the biggest
hygiene problems in history,

but we had plenty of trouble
dealing with one tiny, elusive,

rather disgusting creature.

- Lice, skeeves you
out, right, lice?

Well, they've been
hitching a ride

in hair for more than


- [Austin] Here's a little
refresher on lice.

Lice are tiny parasitic insects.

They're about the
size of a sesame seed,

and they nest in hair.

They feed on our blood,

and they transmit from person

to person via personal
objects, combs, clothing,

or interpersonal contact.

- [Dan] And unlike a lot of
other creepy crawlies

that we've had to deal
with over the course

of human history,

we've just never quite
managed to get rid of lice.

- [Martin] We were being brought
into the school nurse's office

every month, and she would
inspect all of us for lice.

She would simply sort of
root around on your scalp,

have a look at your scalp,
and then send you on your way.

It was just one of the many
indignities that we were exposed

to in the school nurse's office.

- But God forbid you got
sick the day after lice day.

Undeniable why you were sick.

You were the one with the lice.

- [Brian] There was a lice
epidemic in my school

and the whole school had it.

It was miserable,

and then the dead ones you had
to comb out, it's horrible.

Even talking about it now,

I'm getting the heebie-jeebies.

- [Henry] Back in the
early 20th century,

people are so desperate

for an effective lice
treatment that they turn

to a brand new
miracle substance.

Kerosene.

- [Kavitha] Kerosene is a pretty
revolutionary product.

By the turn of the
century, it's being used

for everything from heating
homes to industrial cleaning,

and even k*lling lice
off of farm animals.

- [Martin] And it doesn't take
long before someone realizes,

well, if this works
on the livestock,

maybe I should put
it on the kids.

- Medical journals of the
day think it's a great idea.

They even provide
detailed instructions.

Wash the scalp thoroughly,
then clip the hair,

then apply equal parts
kerosene and olive oil.

- [Kavitha] The instructions go

on to say that after you wash
the hair, you're supposed

to pop on a bathing cap,
wait 12 to 24 hours,

and then wash and comb it out.

- [Martin] And parents find that
it's an extremely effective

course of treatment, but you
also have the reality

of a child walking around for


- [Dan] I feel like I shouldn't
have to say this,

but let me be clear.

You shouldn't put kerosene
on your kid's head,

even if they have lice.

- [Brian] It worked in k*lling
the lice,

but this might also k*ll the
people with the lice because,

I mean, you're a matchstick.

You're walking
matchstick all day

in a day where everybody smokes.

- Any spark around
you has the potential

of setting off the kerosene
that is now dousing your head,

- And the kerosene is on
your head and you went up

like a bonfire.

- [Dan] Over the years,

there are numerous stories of
terrible accidents resulting

from kerosene lice treatments.

Kids get first, second,

and third degree burns on
their faces, on their scalps,

on their necks, and
on their shoulders.

- [Martin] Yeah, there are risks
associated with using kerosene

as a treatment, but we're going

to have to do it because there
wasn't another useful course

of treatment at the time.

- [Henry] By the 1950s,
kerosene loses its luster.

And a new innovation hits
the market, lice shampoos.

- [Austin] For lice shampoo, one
common active ingredient

is lindane.

Lindane works a little bit
differently than kerosene.

It overstimulates the
louse's nervous system,

causing eventual death.

- [Henry] Death to lice.
Exactly what the doctor ordered.

But this shampoo is doing
more than de-lousing your kid.

- [Kavitha] Overuse, misuse,

or swallowing the shampoo can
be toxic for your kid's brain.

And one shampoo company even
includes a warning label

to be careful when using on
infants, toddlers, and children.

But that's who it's meant for.

- [Dan] It's great.

It's k*lling the lice,
but it's a neurotoxin

and a child's head is full

of neurons that you
don't want to hurt.

So by the 1990s, they only allow
lindane to be on the market

as an absolute last
resort treatment for lice.

- [Kavitha] It's actually banned
in the state of California

and in agricultural use
throughout the entire US.

And this is something that we
used on our kids for decades.

- When it came to
hair, in the old days,

having lice was
just the beginning.

- In 17th century America,

the medical profession is very
different than it is today.

There's really a divide
between two different types.

There's physicians
and there's surgeons.

The physician is going

to be someone who's
university educated.

They mostly deal
with wealthy people.

They mostly deal with
internal medicine.

- But when it comes time
to actually do some cutting

and sewing or pull
out a tooth, well,

the physician jobs that out
to someone else, a surgeon.

- [Rutledge] And who are the
workers in the neighborhood

with the steadiest hands?

Your barber, barbers don't
just handle grooming needs,

cutting hair, shaving
beards, no, no.

They also can do a
lot of other stuff.

They can lance a boil.

They can cut you
for bloodletting.

- [Lance] It's pretty
convenient.

At the time you're
getting your hair cut.

Also have your leeches
applied, it's a one-stop shop.

- [Hakeem] Believe it or not,

the person that cuts your hair
will also amputate your leg.

Especially in times of w*r,

amputations are a big
part of the barber's job.

This isn't Medieval Europe.

We're not talking about
the Roman Coliseum.

This is America,

and this is still happening
in the early 1800s.

- [Rutledge] They could lop off
a limb in three minutes.

Nowadays, that's like a
three-hour surgery at least.

I mean, I want to be clear.

If I need to have
something amputated,

I would prefer the three-hour
surgery by real surgeons.

- [Henry] And barbers
aren't hard to find.

They hang some very
peculiar signage out front.

- [Lance] They reuse bandages.

So they just rinse them out
and they hang them up to dry.

And that becomes a
form of advertising.

People start

to recognize that if you see
bloody bandages out front,

that's a barber surgeon.

- [Adam] Fittingly, that amount
of gore as advertising is seen

as off-putting.

So ultimately, they create the
now iconic pole that is white

with a swirl of red

as a little bit of an homage
to the blood soaked bandages.

- [Henry] While barbers
may act like surgeons,

their practices are
far from sterile.

- [Hakeem] If you have ever gone
to a barbershop in the last 50

years or so?

You see that there's that thing

of blue liquid where
they put tools in there.

That liquid is known
as barbicide,

and it's a disinfectant.

And it's not
invented until 1947.

So barbers don't
sterilize anything.

- [Adam] The knives, the
saws, the scissors,

they were just used
from one patient

after the other, which means
if a saw was used on you,

it's still dripping with
the blood from the patient

before you.

- [Lance] Eventually,

we're starting to get more
medical schools in America,

and the field becomes
more professionalized,

and people realize
that surgery requires

more sophisticated
training than shaving.

- [Rutledge] The last vestiges

of the barbershop surgeon
were really gone by the 1800s.

After that, barbershops
started looking a lot more like

what we know them to be today.

- [Adam] That pole seems like a
very sweet candy cane-ish

reminder of times gone by.

When you look at it, what you
should see are bloody bandages

all in a wild swirl around a
bloodletting, tooth pulling,

haircutting, shaving barbershop.

- Imagine what those
barbershops were like.

We don't even like to nick
ourselves shaving today.

But back then, they were
drawing blood on purpose.

- We all want fresh breath,

but back in the day,

some people had a very
different way to get it.

And it's probably the last
thing you'd expect to find

in a dentist's office.

- In the 1920s, a guy named
Lloyd Spud Hughes is working

as a cashier in his family's
restaurant in m1ngo Junction,

Ohio.

Spud has asthma,

and one day to help
him with his symptoms,

his mom gives him
some menthol crystals.

- [Natalia] Menthol crystals
come from peppermint oil.

If you dissolve one

or two in hot water,

it releases a vapor that
really relieves congestion.

- [Don] It's a similar principle
to that vapor goop

that your mom used to
slather on your chest

whenever you got a cold.

This is just the steam form.

And to make sure he doesn't
lose track of these crystals,

Spud stores them in
the same container

where he keeps his cigarettes.

Yeah. Spud the
asthmatic is a smoker.

- [Brian] So good old Spud keeps
his menthol crystals

in with his cigarettes.

That bleeds over
into the cigarettes.

He smokes it, gets
a fresh minty taste.

Menthol cigarettes are born.

- [Lance] Spud patents the idea

and he sells it to a
tobacco manufacturer.

They start to see that maybe
there's value beyond the taste

because of the menthol.

They tell you it's actually
going to give you good breath.

- [Jason] So they start
marketing spud menthol

cigarettes, they give you a
fresh, cool mouth.

They make your mouth feel
as fresh as a May morning.

- [Brian] There was something

about the menthol cigarette
that took a cigarette

and elevated it to a fancy,
almost candy-like arena.

- [Jason] Those other
cigarettes, oh, they

might be enjoyable.

But do they freshen your breath?

So it's like back up your
cigarette with another cigarette

to take care of the smell that
the first cigarette gave you.

I mean, this is genius.

- [Henry] The advertising works.

And by 1932,

Spud Cigarettes are the
fifth most popular brand

in the country.

- A whole bunch of other
people actually jump

on the bandwagon too,

and you've got a few competing
menthol cigarette brands.

- [Henry] And these new
cigarettes push their menthol

marketing even further.

- To the snowfresh
coolness of cool.

- What's so interesting,

one of these ads actually
says, "Got a cold.

Smoke a Kool."

So the idea that smoking
menthols will help you

with a respiratory
issue is actually

something being marketed
with a straight face.

- So you're kind of
k*lling two birds

and your lungs with one stone.

- [Brian] By the 1960s,

people start catching on that
smoking is not good for you.

And what do the menthol
cigarette companies do?

They start telling you,
"Hey, not our cigarettes."

- [Narrator] Switch from
hot to snow fresh filter.

- Not only are cigarettes
not bad for you,

they will help deal
with the problems

that smoking caused for you.

So the solution for all the
problems that cigarettes caused

was more cigarettes.

What a ballsy move. You
have to admire it in a way.

- [Henry] It's true
marketing magic,

at least while it lasts.

- In 1964, the Surgeon General
releases a landmark report

that leads to a safety
label that we've all seen.

Caution.

Cigarette smoking may be
hazardous to your health.

- And we can add to that now.

It's probably not good for
your bad breath either.

- So lighting up
couldn't fix bad breath.

That doesn't mean we
stop using small fires

to solve hygiene problems.

In the fight against earwax,

people in the 1990s
turn their heads

into full-on candle opreras.

- For thousands of years,

we've had a complicated
relationship with earwax.

Is it good? Is it bad?

Why is it called wax?

- [Adam] Earwax is actually made
in our bodies by special glands

in and around the ear canal.

And if there's too much buildup,

it could actually
cause hearing loss.

- [Jason] We've used
everything imaginable

to get ear wax out of our ears.

Look, the rougher way,
we use our fingers.

You just can get our
fingers in there.

But we use cotton swabs
and we use suction cups.

There's all sorts of things.

- [Negin] I just need to know
that like

when I pull an AirPod
out of my ears,

it's not disgusting for anyone
who may happen to notice.

- [Henry] In the 1990s,

there's a resurgence of a
natural method for wax removal.

It's known as ear candling.

- [Dan] Ear candling, as a
practice,

is documented to go back at
least to the early 1900s,

but people who are fans

of it say that it goes
back to ancient times.

- How ear candling
works is you've got

a 10-inch hollow candle tube,

and that's inserted
into your ear

and lit from the other side.

And that's supposed to
burn for 15 minutes,

which supposedly creates a
vacuum that draws your ear wax

out into the candle.

- [Dan] It's enormous in spa
culture. Practitioners

swear by this,

You just lie down, they stick
some candles in your ears

and light them on fire,
maybe burn some incense.

It feels amazing.

- [Negin] So then after you
do the candling,

they like supple
it open the candle

and then you can see all
this wax that's come out

of your ears and you're
like, "Oh my God."

So there's this little
like dopamine hit

at the end of like how
much wax you were able

to retrieve through
this process.

- [Dan] One Seattle candle
distributor reportedly sells

over a thousand dollars
of candles

every week just for this.

But it turns out sticking a
flaming candle in your ear isn't

as good an idea as
you might think.

- [Jason] There are issues like
punctured eardrums,

or how about this?

Hot wax dripping into your ear.

So that hot wax can now
harden inside your ear.

You're trying to get
stuff out of your ear,

and in some cases,

you're putting even
worse stuff into it.

- [Adam] That's a dangerous
scenario to begin with,

and many problems arise.

People have burns to
their face, to their neck,

to their upper back.

Hair catches fire,
and homes catch fire.

- [Jason] In 1996, there are 21
serious injuries reported

connected to ear candling.

In 2005, a woman's
house catches on fire

and she dies because of this.

- [Dan] Which brings us to
the ultimate irony.

When you open it up and
you find that wax inside,

you're looking at candle wax.

It's just melted candle.
Nothing came out of you.

Health experts,
including the FDA,

issue all kinds of warnings
saying, "Don't do ear candling."

And there are enough
injuries and liability suits

that the practice just
kind of falls off a cliff.

- We'll just have to keep
searching for the perfect way

to remove earwax.

You know,

some problems aren't meant to
be solved with an open flame.

- Cowboys, baseball players,
and camels all do it.

And back in the day, everyone
and their mother was doing it.

And it could end up k*lling you.

- [Lance] By the mid 1800s,
there's a habit that is very

common for everybody in America
and that is spitting in public.

If you have a respiratory issue,

if you have phlegm
in your lungs,

then people are actually
encouraged to expectorate.

And so they're really
telling people hock a loogie

and spit it on the ground.

- [Martin] At the same time,
chewing tobacco is

incredibly popular.

It achieved a popularity far
greater than cigarette smoking.

It came first.

- [Don] Of course, this has a
really specific side effect,

a steady stream of
brown bitter saliva.

People don't think twice
about just spitting anywhere

in streets, saloons, wherever.

It's even seen as a
kind of manly gesture.

- Some people, and I've
witnessed this myself,

got that technique when
they do the two fingers.

They go in the stream, just
like a laser jet coming out.

- [Don] Foreign travelers
come to these shores

and they remark about how
disgusting Americans are

with their constant spitting.

- People are more
and more asking like,

"What can we do to cut
down on this epidemic

of tobacco spits staining
absolutely everything?"

- The solution to
this is the spittoon.

A spittoon is a receptacle
with a wide mouth,

usually made out of brass

or ceramics to make
spitting easier.

- [Lance] By the 1870s in
America,

spittoons are pretty
much everywhere.

They're basically considered
to be a sanitary solution

to the spitting habit.

- [Natalia] In a way though,
these spittoons

also cause their own problem

because they legitimize
the act of spitting

and they're almost an
invitation to spit.

- [Hakeem] You know how dudes
are when it comes to a

waste basket?

You got to see how far away
you can make that shot.

Imagine doing that
with a spittoon.

So this just becomes
a nasty spittoon area.

- Cleaning and
disposing of the spit

in the spittoons every day
also causes its own problem.

The janitor, whoever is going
to pick it up is likely going

to spill it
everywhere as it goes.

And then what are
they doing with it?

Just dumping it into the
street or to the river?

- [Lance] Congress had
them, and apparently

congressmen were
particularly bad at spitting.

So there was actually
an official report

in 1898 that said,

"Please improve your behavior.

You're making a grotesque
mess that wouldn't be allowed

in a barroom or a mining camp."

And that's the floor
of the US Congress.

- [Henry] By the late 1800s,

some realize America's
spitting habit is more

than just messy.

- [Hakeem] Around the same time,
doctors start warning people

about these things called germs.

And they let them know
that it's present in spit.

And horrible diseases
like tuberculosis

in particular can
be spread this way.

This is the first time a lot

of Americans have
heard about germs,

and it's making an impression.

- [Natalia] In 1896, New York
City becomes the first major

city to outlaw spitting in
public spaces like on sidewalks.

- [Martin] They have ad
campaigns that encourage people

not to spit, and one of
them features a baby

and it says, "For my
sake, don't spit."

Like how you monster?

How could you spit?

Think of the babies
you disgusting animal.

- [Henry] What gets
Americans to finally leave

this unsanitary but
fun practice behind?

Another more tasty
chewing product.

- [Don] It's around this time
just before the 1920s

that Wrigley's double mint
gum becomes wildly popular

alongside their juicy
fruit and spirit flavors.

There's a whole host of others.

- [Lance] This is the golden
age of chewing gum,

and it replaces tobacco

as a favorite chewing habit
for younger generations.

- [Don] And for those who still
want that nicotine fix,

the more gentile
cigarettes step in.

- Spittoons were gross
saliva-filled basins.

But in the mid 1800s,

it was hard to tell
your spittoon

from your drinking water.

- In the mid 19th century,

American cities are
incredibly filthy.

You have hundreds of thousands
of horses dropping manure.

You got people
emptying chamber pots.

- [Kavitha] All that waste gets
into the groundwater,

which obviously then
gets consumed by humans.

So while water is life,
bad water can be death.

- [Edward] And there are
frequent outbreaks of cholera,

diphtheria,

typhoid, diseases that k*ll
thousands of people in a summer.

- [Henry] At first,
people begin turning

to a different kind of liquid
to quench their thirst.

Alcohol.

- [Dan] It sounds crazy, but
back then, drinking alcohol

was better for you than drinking
publicly available water.

- [Brian] The process to make
beer sanitizes the water

and it's kegged up and kept
safe until you drink it.

So people could go to the bar
and in the interest of safety,

drink nice, safe alcohol,

as opposed to poison water.

- Today, the average
American drinks around two

and a half gallons
of alcohol per year.

Back then, it was way higher.

About four beers or beer
equivalents per day.

- [Edward] Both public health
advocates

and temperance
societies begin to say,

"We need to provide the people
with clean, healthy water."

So by the 1870s, it's quite
common to see a water fountain

or several water fountains

throughout major cities,

providing fresh
water to the masses.

- [Austin] The water can be used
for washing your hands

or gathering stuff for cleaning,

and then it flows out into
a trough for your pets

and your horses.

But the cleanest water
is the one straight

from the spigot at the top.

- [Henry] Clean
water for all, right?

But there's just one problem.

How do you drink
from the fountain?

- The communal cup, which is
exactly what it sounds like.

It is a metal cup
attached to a thick chain

on the fountain where you could
dip in your cup, drink it,

and then leave it
for the next person.

And people loved it.

- [Austin] It's like a modern
day water cooler,

except instead of a paper
cup that you throw out

after you have a sip,
everyone gets the same cup.

- [Henry] But turns out,

they're sharing more
than just a cup.

- [Dan] A physician from Kansas
named Dr. Samuel Crumbine is

on a train when he
sees a child drink

from a communal cup right
after a tuberculosis patient.

And that's when he realizes
this whole sharing cups thing

seems like a terrible idea.

- [Kavitha] He realizes that
these communal cups are

basically ground zero
for spreading disease.

Everything from tuberculosis
to typhoid to dysentery.

- [Edward] So Crumbine launches
this campaign to ban the cup.

And they often use provocative
cartooning showing,

for example, the
grim reaper at one

of these fountains handing
the cup to a child,

you know, the kiss of death.

- [Austin] Despite initial
public perception

and backlash, by 1915,
Crumbine's campaign has worked.

The communal cup is nearly gone.

- [Dan] Today, it seems obvious.

Hey, that person's
coughing up blood.

Maybe they shouldn't be
sharing a drinking cup

with the whole town.

And it didn't take long for
people to figure it out,

but it did take longer
than you would hope.

- I guess good hygiene meant
something different back then.

- Remember going to the
school nurse with a cut?

That antiseptic
stung like crazy.

There had to be a better way.

And actually, there was,
a solution that dates back

to the 1920s, as long as you
didn't mind a touch of poison.

- [Austin] After World w*r I,
soldiers return home

with firsthand accounts of
this thing that helped them get

through cuts and
scrapes, iodine.

- [Don] Iodine is great at
k*lling germs, but civilians

and kids especially quickly
learn the stuff really burns.

So thank you very much.

I'll take the life-threatening
infection instead.

- [Henry] But it turns
out there's actually

a much less painful
antiseptic in the works.

- [Rutledge] Around
the same time,

a urologist named Hugh H. Young

is trying to
develop a solution

for infections that
happen in your downstairs,

your nether regions,
if you will.

Especially people
with gonorrhea.

The clap is a big problem
during World w*r I.

- [Natalia] But even though
Americans aren't involved in the

fighting of World
w*r I for that long,

they are in the w*r long
enough to rack up 383,000 cases

of venereal disease, most
of which are gonorrhea.

- [Rutledge] What Young
came up with,

he called Mercurochrome 220,

which is very effective
at k*lling germs.

- [Natalia] And it doesn't
sting at all.

This is very important when
you're using it topically

in the urethra, which is
such a sensitive area.

- [Don] Young partners with
a pharmaceutical firm

and they bring it to market

as a topical antiseptic
for cuts and wounds.

The idea is if this
stuff is gentle enough

for extremely sensitive
areas, then it's going

to be gentle enough for kids
anywhere on their bodies.

It'll be great for families.

- [Austin] Mercurochrome ads
really play this up.

They say children
will not hesitate

to report their injuries

when Mercurochrome is
your household antiseptic

because they know
it won't hurt you.

- [Don] When you
scraped your knee

or did anything in the backyard,

the first thing your
mom would do would paint

that little red
liquid on the booboo.

You know, like that was the
way you were going to heal.

Of course.

- [Martin] This was like a
weekly part of my life

as a child.

You got a cut, spread
some Mercurochrome on it,

because that was their
answer to everything.

Oh, you cut yourself
here. Splat.

- [Don] I really remember
Mercurochrome

as it doesn't sting,

therefore it must be good.

It was a trusty product.

And that little scrape
that was covered

with red was a badge of honor.

You'd had a good time.

- [Henry] If Mercurochrome
is so effective

and popular, why
don't we still use it?

- It turns out the mer

in Mercurochrome
stands for merbromin,

which contains mercury.

- [Don] Mercury is really bad
stuff.

It damages the nervous
system, internal organs,

not to mention, it
makes you crazy.

- [Martin] Any contact with
mercury on your bare skin

is toxic.

It's even worse if it's

an exposed piece
of skin from a cut.

And then what are people doing?

They're slathering
Mercurochrome on that.

They're introducing
mercury into an open wound.

- [J Mack] A bottle of
Mercurochrome has about a half a

gram of mercury in it, which
doesn't sound like a lot.

But if you're a child
having this lathered all

over your body, getting
inside of these cuts,

it can give you a
thousand times a dose

that a human adult can handle.

- [Martin] We're basically
just dosing children

for average everyday
cuts with mercury.

Like you fall down,
scrape your knee. Mercury.

Oh, you cut yourself, you
got a paper cut. Mercury.

Over and over again. Here's
some poison to treat that wound.

- [Austin] In the 1970s and
'80s,

there is a lot of concern
about mercury content.

There's mercury in our fish,

in some other chemicals
that we utilize.

So Mercurochrome's got to go.

- [Natalia] Newer antiseptics
also work just as well,

and they're not
made from mercury.

- [Rutledge] What's wild is
that it's not till the '90s when

the FDA finally says, "You know,
mercury is pretty bad for you.

I guess we should stop
letting people spread it all

over themselves."

And that's when they
finally banned it.

- [Natalia] You might still see
a product using the name

Mercurochrome but unless it's
from your grandfather's dusty

old cabinet, chances are it does
not contain mercury.

- [Don] Little did I know that I
would be carrying this mercury

in my body, but it didn't sting,

and that's the important part.

- For generations,

Americans used Mercurochrome
to clean up cuts.

It just took us a little longer

to clean up the Mercurochrome.

- Everybody knows regular
bathing is essential

for good hygiene.

But in the old days, a bath
was often less beneficial

and more of a biohazard.

- [Natalia] In the mid 1800s,
bathing regularly,

much less with clean water,

is not really a priority
for most Americans.

In rural areas, if you
wanted to get clean,

you would maybe jump in a lake

or you would use
an animal trough,

which meant that you
were bathing

in like 90% horse saliva.

- [Edward] To bathe in a rural
environment

meant that you had to go to

the river or to the
well and get gallon

after gallon of ice cold
water, bring it inside,

and then spend a
ton of money on wood

to get it heated up enough

so that someone would
have at least warm water

in order to bathe themselves.

And then people in the
family, starting with dad,

he would go first, then
mom, then the children,

all down the line,
reusing the water.

- Spare a though
for the youngest

of the family that had to
sit in that human chowder

and think that that
was taking a bath.

- Things are worse
in the cities.

In the late 1800s,

individual apartments
don't have running water.

And typically there's
only one spout

per floor that would
have to serve something

like 20 different apartments.

And that spout has
one temperature, cold.

- [Adam] In tenements very
often, people would have a basin

and they would use a sponge

and it was like a cold
water sponge bath.

- This is why city dwellers

get the nickname
The Great Unwashed.

So city living required
some shame swallowing.

- [Henry] Due to
poor sanitation,

diseases like cholera and
typhoid are on the rise.

So in 1870, New York
City officials come up

with an innovative way to bring
good hygiene to the masses.

They call them floating baths.

- [Adam] When you look at the
photos of the floating baths,

it's really kind of amazing.

There are these massive 95 by


that are on barges or
just tethered to a dock,

and anyone could get
a nice 20-minute soak.

- [Natalia] These floating baths
are really popular.

The first one in Manhattan
services 4,500 people a day.

Soon after, Brooklyn
has five floating baths,

and they bathe one
million people per summer.

- [Edward] I think if I was
alive at the time,

I would've absolutely
been in one of those pools

because it is sweltering
in New York City.

There's no air conditioning.

People don't have electric
fans. It's so refreshing.

It's fun.

You're there with your family,
your friends, your children.

It's a great way
to fight the heat

and fight the filth
at the same time.

- [Hakeem] But the big problem
is that the water

in the floating bath
is the river water,

and that water was gross.

- [Adam] The water that is going

into these baths is not from
some below ground aquifer.

It's not being brought
in from Saratoga.

It's not going through
a desalination process.

It's the same funky fetid
water from the river itself.

Basically, the tubs
have slats in them.

So what feeds the bath?
It's the same river water.

- The Environmental Protection
Agency is not established

for like another century.

So the waterfront industries
like slaughterhouses just use

the river as a dumping ground.

So they're putting
bones and organs

and animal carcasses
just right in there.

- [Adam] Tanneries put animal
hides into really toxic

chemicals to dissolve any hairs

or anything that are
on the skin itself.

We're not talking about
some kind of soap.

They're tossing in lime.
They're tossing in arsenic.

- [Hakeem] And also, you
have street runoff,

and it's the time that
they're using horses.

So it's full of manure

and other just
nasty stuff that's

on the surface of the city.

- [Adam] So while you're there
soaking for hygiene,

you're also in this revolting
stew of lime, arsenic,

rotting animals, poop,
metal, and glass.

Fantastic.

- [Edward] As the health
hazards associated

with these public
baths become more

and more evident, public
health officials start

to see there's more of a
downside than an upside.

And so public health
officials begin to argue

for the closure of these baths.

But the huddled masses in
the tenement districts,

they oppose this because they
really like these things.

- [Negin] Even though the river
baths were real gross and filthy

and full of disease,
people were committed

and they were not fully
shut down until the 1940s.

So those things
really stuck around.

- Remembering all the
things we once thought were

perfectly sanitary, from
splinters in our toilet paper,

to fire in our ears, to
barbers who just took

off a smidge on the
side, and your left leg.

Good hygiene could
be dirty work,

but that's what made
our hazardous history