Dirt, disgust and disease: a natural history of hygiene

Curtis, Valerie A

doi:10.1136/jech.2007.062380

Cited by 169History of Science and MedicineHistory of Emotions ResearchHistory of Medicine and Tropical Health

Dirt, disgust and disease: a natural history of hygiene

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Curtis, Valerie A·2007·Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health

DOI 10.1136/jech.2007.062380PMC PMC2652987

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Abstract

Hygiene has been studied from multiple perspectives, including that of history. I define hygiene as the set of behaviours that animals, including humans, use to avoid infection. I argue that it has an ancient evolutionary history, and that most animals exhibit such behaviours because they were adaptive. In humans, the avoidance of infectious threats is motivated by the emotion of disgust. Intuition about hygiene, dirt and disease can be found underlying belief about health and disease throughout history. Purification ritual, miasma, contagion, zymotic and germ theories of disease are ideas that spread through society because they are intuitively attractive, because they are supported by evidence either from direct experience or from authoritative report and because they are consistent with existing beliefs. In contrast to much historical and anthropological assertion, I argue that hygiene behaviour and disgust predate culture and so cannot fully be explained as its product. The history of ideas about disease thus is neither entirely socially constructed nor an “heroic progress” of scientists leading the ignorant into the light. As an animal behaviour the proper domain of hygiene is biology, and without this perspective attempts at explanation are incomplete. The approaches of biological anthropology have much to offer the practice of cultural history.

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Disgust has a long evolutionary history; the reason it is part of our psyche is neither primarily cultural nor historical, but biological.
“Disgust has a long evolutionary history; the reason it is part of our psyche is neither primarily cultural nor historical, but biological.”
From Disgusting Bodies, Disgusting Religion: The Biology of Tantra (2011) · cites this paper as Curtis 2007: 660
There is a link between dirt, disgust, hygiene and disease that predates history, science, culture, and Homo sapiens.
“There is a link between dirt, disgust, hygiene and disease, but it is a link that predates history, that predates science and culture, that even predates Homo sapiens.”
From Disgusting Bodies, Disgusting Religion: The Biology of Tantra (2011) · cites this paper as Curtis 2007: 660

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Authors: Curtis, V. A.
Venue: Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health
Publisher: BMJ
Published: 2007-07-13
Volume: 61
Issue: 8
Pages: 660-664
ISSN: 0141-7681 (ISSN-L)
0143-005X
1470-2738
DOI: 10.1136/jech.2007.062380
PMC: PMC2652987
OpenAlex: W2010209884
Cited by: 169
References: 44
Citations by year: 2026: 7 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 13 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 14 · 2014: 14 · 2013: 13 · 2012: 6
FWCI: 2.19
Type: journal article
Language: en
Open access: green
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Locations: Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health (publishedVersion)
PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders: Unilever
Topics: Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › History of Science and Medicine
Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History › History of Emotions Research
Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History › History of Medicine and Tropical Health
Keywords: hygiene, disgust, dirt, disease, infection avoidance, animal behavior, germ theory, miasma theory, contagion theory, purification rituals, history of medicine, cultural history, physical anthropology, social construction of illness
MeSH terms: Animals, Attitude to Health, Behavior, Animal, Culture, Emotions, Humans, Hygiene, Parasitology, Public Health, Health Behavior

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Dirt, disgust and disease: a natural history of hygiene

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