When we enjoy many high-tech products now, we always feel very convenient, so many people are more curious, in the ancient times without so much high technology, how did the ancients live? In fact, this question is indeed worth pondering.
But too complex or professional things, Presumably we are also difficult to figure out, today I will from a very simple and ordinary thing, with everyone to understand the ancient life, this small thing is to wash clothes, today we have a variety of different laundry detergent, want to wash clothes fragrant, there is no difficulty, then in ancient times, there is no washing detergent and laundry detergent and other things, people's clothes are not very smelly? How do they wash their clothes?
Ancient Western ways of washing
In fact, soap and soap workshops have appeared in the ancient West around the third century, but the real popularization of soap is after the eighteenth century, that is to say, before the eighteenth century, although there is such a thing as soap, but the production is very small.
Once the output is small, the natural price will be very high, the price is too expensive, soap has become a luxury, ordinary people naturally can not afford to consume, even those princes and nobles who can afford to consume, it is estimated that they are reluctant to take soap to wash clothes, after all, so expensive things, take a bath is almost the same, washing clothes is too luxurious.
Since soap can't be used to wash clothes, what did ancient Westerners use to wash clothes? In fact, they still came up with some methods, such as using grass and wood ash to wash clothes, which is an effective method, but the more incomprehensible point is that some places in ancient Western countries will add some urine while using grass and wood ash to wash clothes, I don't know what the benefits of this way of washing clothes, in short, in our view today, it is somewhat difficult to accept.
As for the way of washing clothes with grass and wood ash, in fact, it is indeed effective, especially for some clothes containing oil stains, the use of grass and wood ash, you can use the potassium carbonate in it to clean up the oil stains, this method is not only popular in the West, but also used in ancient China.
In ancient China, there have been many records of the use of grass and wood ash to wash clothes, such as in the "Book of Rites" and "Examination Of The Record" and other historical books, there have been records of people using grass and wood ash to clean some clothes with oil stains or difficult to clean by ordinary methods, and even in the linen fabrics unearthed in Mawangdui, experts have also found traces of using grass and wood ash to wash clothes, which is enough to show that in ancient China, some people actually used this way to wash clothes.
Of course, the use of grass and wood ash to wash clothes, generally for some of the more stubborn stains, only need to use, if for ordinary stains, in fact, ancient Chinese people, but also created the rest of the more easy to use laundry methods, the following I will tell you in detail.
Ancient Chinese laundry methods
In the ancient Chinese laundry method, the first use of a relatively simple and rough laundry method is the pulp washing, this method in the very beginning of the people have been used, the specific operation is before the pulp washing, will use the washboard or some laundry stick to beat or rub the clothes, after this procedure, and then put the clothes in the rice soup for pulp washing.
Of course, in fact, for the clothes that are generally not dirty, in the process of rubbing and sticking, they have basically been washed, because in this process, the ancients will use a natural "washing powder", this natural "washing powder" is the soap horn.
Soap horn after beating and breaking, put in the water a soak, will produce some foam, and today's washing powder some similar, when I was a child I also used soap horn to wash hair, indeed or more useful, with this natural soap horn on the clothes after washing, the clothes are basically relatively clean, as long as it is dried, at least it is impossible to appear sour and smelly situation.
With the wisdom and technology of the ancients later improved, the way and method of washing clothes has also been improved, soap horn was gradually processed by people later, making things such as "pancreas" and "bath beans", the so-called pancreas, in fact, after using pig pancreas for air drying, adding some herbs and spices to it, washing clothes with pancreas, not only washed more cleanly, but also become fragrant.
Even later, after the pancreas was processed and further studied, it became a more useful and fragrant bath bean, which should be regarded as the earliest soap, which can be used for bathing and can also be used to wash clothes, with many classifications and many uses.
It can be said that after the development of bath beans, the ancient study of laundry, at least at the level of physical decontamination, has been relatively advanced and mature, and later the ancients continued to exert wisdom, in the Ming Dynasty period to create artificial stone alkali, instead of the previous use of natural alkaline decontamination materials such as grass and wood ash, prompting the ancients to use chemical decontamination on the road to a higher level.
From this point of view, in fact, after the Ming Dynasty, the ancients did not need to worry about washing or bathing, because whether it is a physical decontamination method or a chemical decontamination method, it is already relatively mature, compared to the Western eighteenth century only mass production of soap, ancient Chinese technology and the wisdom of the ancients, it is really breathtaking.
epilogue
The wisdom of the ancients is endless, although there is no such washing powder or laundry detergent in ancient times, but the ancients relied on their own wisdom, making full use of the things that exist in nature, making things such as pancreas, bath beans and artificial lithophylloids to wash clothes, so that the ancients could wear clean and tidy clothes at any time, and it was impossible to appear dirty and smelly!
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