Galen (Bergama, Turkey, 129-216 AD), physician, writer, philosopher. After ten years of medical training in Alexandria in Egypt, the largest medical center in the ancient world, he returned to Pergamum. He worked here for five years and went to Rome. He performed public anatomy demonstrations in Rome. He developed his knowledge of anatomy with his dissection studies on animals such as African monkeys, pigs and sheep, and described the human cardiovascular system correctly for the first time. Half of his works were translated from Greek into Arabic or Syriac by Hunayn ibn Ishak, an Arab physician at the court of Baghdad, and his followers, and these translations formed the basis of medieval European medical education. The impact on medical education M.S. It lasted until 1500 years.
B.C. When the 5th century is reached, the ideas put forward by natural philosophers will lead to radical changes in people's beliefs about nature and themselves. As a human being, his level of consciousness has reached the stage where he will begin to distinguish between his spiritual side and his physical side. The individual reaches the belief that he needs to be cleansed not only for spiritual reasons but also for physical reasons. The ideas developed by natural philosophers have come to question the spiritually based approach in medical practices. Although it has not been proven yet, it has begun to be suspected that diseases are caused by invisible creatures, so "hygienic" practices in a rational sense have started to be a part of our daily life culture.
In this period, the culture of scraping the dirt layer formed by oil, sand and sweat on the body with a tool called strigilis, washing with cold water, powdering and rubbing the body skin with olive oil became widespread in order to ensure personal cleanliness in ancient Greek cities. These were the periods when olive farming became widespread in the Greek mainland and olive oil was more readily available. In addition, a kind of soap solution made from ash, soap grass and olive oil is also used. Especially in the Ionian cities rising on the Aegean coasts of Anatolia, baths and spa buildings multiply. B.C. It is known that olive oil for washing and oiling, which is among the most important activities of the Ionians, was produced in olive oil workshops dating back to the 6th century, and soapy products were produced as cleaning materials.
There is an old legend about soap from the ancient Roman period, in which women took part. Women washing clothes on the banks of the Tiber River on the banks of Mount Sapo, where animal sacrifice rites are performed for the pagan gods, one day realize that they clean their laundry easily without much effort. On the days when animals were sacrificed and burned, wood ash, animal fat, and water must have initiated a spontaneous saponification reaction, and the bubbling waters of the Tiber might have made cleaning easier? However, this view does not seem to be acceptable. Because the Romans offered the inedible parts of animals, bones and viscera, to the gods during sacrificial ceremonies. They kept edible parts such as oil and meat for themselves. Also, the legendary "Mount Sapo" does not actually exist. While it may be true that the Roman peoples used some form of soap for cleaning, this fact does not mean that they invented it.
Today, it is used in western languages as "soap" in English, "savon" in French, "sapone" in Italian, "seife" in German, "saippua" in Finnish, "szappan" in Hungarian and even in Turkish. The origin of the word “soap” we use is Latin. The word derives from the Latin word "sebum" (tallow, tallow). It is known that the Celts, one of the ancient inhabitants of the British Isles, named the substance they produced from animal fats and plant ashes 'Saipo', which means "effort" in the language of that period. This word must have changed to 'Soap' later on. These phonetically similar words seem to derive from the legend of Mount Sapo or from the Celts.
In Roman literature, the word “sapo” is mentioned for the first time in the work of Pliny the Elder (1st century A.D.) called “Naturalis Historia”; "...sapo is also useful. It was found to brighten and redden the hair of Gaul women. It is made from tallow and ash, best of all from beech tree ash and goat tallow. It has two varieties, solid and liquid. It was also used more by men than by women among the Germans. used". Plinius does not mention that 'sapo' was used for body cleansing. It just describes it as a substance used to dye hair red and shine. Therefore, it is understood that during his lifetime (23-79 AD), 'sapo' was used for hair beauty and care rather than cleaning.
At that time, it is not known how much soap the Romans consumed for body cleansing, who were almost obsessed with the washing activity. It is known that, as a continuation of Greek culture, they rubbed their bodies with clay, sand, olive oil and pumice stone and massaged the skin, then scraped the oily dirt off the skin with "strigil" and then entered the water. The Romans have almost made it a belief to go to the baths, the baths generally open early in the morning every day of the week and serve until late in the evening and sometimes at night. The foaming and cleaning of human skin better feature of the sapon, but M.S. It will be noticed and widespread after the 1st century. Made using animal fat and crude alkali, this soap spread very slowly because it smelled bad and was difficult to use.
M.S. In the excavations of the city of Pompeii, which was destroyed by ash and lava flows within 15 minutes after the explosion in 79, a complete soap production site was found, up to the cooking pots. At the same time, soap fragments that lasted for 2000 years were unearthed among the volcanic ash. It is understood that the settled peoples here used the ashes emitted as a result of previous eruptions of Vesuvius to manufacture soap.
It is thought that soap was well known by the Romans, its production turned into a kind of craftsmanship, but it was used in medicine, cosmetics and textile cleaning rather than personal cleaning.
Human or animal urea (urine) mixed with water was the most used material for stain removal in ancient Rome. Animal urine, especially camel urine, is used for cleaning clothes. Human urine was collected from Roman streets and public urinals as a source of ammonia. Plinius mentions that urine removes ink stains and is used for medical treatment. The cleaning efficiency of urine is due to the content of ammonium carbonate, which reacts with the oils in the wool, resulting in a mild saponification reaction with fabrics containing molecular oil.
Depleting the Roman treasury, Nero's successor Vespasian taxes the businesses that run public toilets to replenish the empire's coffers. The urine collected in these establishments is sold to laundries. The name of the tax is spread among the people as "urine tax". When his son and later emperor Titus asked his father, "Is there a tax on the piss, dad?" his father replied, "Non olet!" (money has no smell).
Clay, which is a strong degreaser and has a whitening effect on white fabrics, is also used for cleaning. Soda, which is a natural sodium carbonate, was another alternative. Iznik and Van lakes are lakes with natural soda properties in our country. In those times, washing laundry in lakes with soda property was a common cleaning habit.
It is known that in Rome, soap solution was added to various painting techniques and wall paintings to prevent them from changing colors over time.
It is known that the Germans, the peoples of Northern Europe, used a kind of soap using tree and moss ashes. At that time, the Gauls, the peoples living in the territory of present-day France, produced soapy slurries from elderberry tree, goat tallow and wood root. It is known that soap was known and used by Roman peoples when the empire reached its strongest periods. It is not known whether the Romans, famous for their baths, especially fond of cleaning and purification practices, which are the most important elements of temple rituals, learned to use and produce soap from the Germans or the Gauls. Soap, the production of which increased at that time, will become one of the export products of the Romans in time, its use became widespread not for cleansing the body, but for softening dry hair, it was also used as a balm. After Galen, its use for body cleansing will also become widespread.
The construction of "sapo" is described in the work "De Simplicibus Medicaminibus" attributed to Galen of Pergamon (129-200 A.D.). This is also the first record of the use of the solution called "sapo" as a body cleansing tool. Sapo, which started to be used not only for cleaning the fabrics but also as a preparation/medicine for medicinal purposes, was only used in its current form in A.D. II. In the 19th century, it will become widespread as a material used in personal cleaning. There is almost no information about the production details of the product that Galen proposes in his notes: "Sapo is made from beef, shriveled ram or sheep tallow and lye mixed with lime. We think it is the best German made because it is the clearest and almost densest. In second place is that of the Gauls. Indeed, any sapo can dissolve any stain and remove any dirt from the body or clothing”. From the expressions in Gene Galen's book "De Dynamidiis", it was concluded that "sapo" has a soft spreadable structure.
M.S. III. There are expressions of soap and soap making in the work of Zosimos, a native of Panapolis, who lived in the 4th century BC, but Zosimos does not directly describe soap making.
M.S. IV. century Istanbul physician Theodorus Priscianus recommends the use of soap for washing hair. The recipe here is very similar to the Gaul soap that would later be described as "French/Marseille soap".
There is an opinion that soap consumption decreased in Europe with the decline of the Roman Empire and the rise of the Christian faith. This opinion; It is based on the papal institution's view of bathing as an earlier polytheistic Roman behavior and a pagan tradition that must be destroyed. It is thought that the Christian consciousness's ruling out taking a bath on the grounds that it is religiously inappropriate is one of the reasons that facilitated the emergence of epidemics in medieval Europe.
However, the soap culture did not disappear during the Middle Ages, A.D. After the 7th century, it starts to rise again.
Compiled by: Uğur Saraçoğlu (ugisaracoglu@yahoo.com.tr)
Resources:
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