Howdy partners! Welcome to the wild wild west where the sky is blue,
the plains are wide, and the hygiene is... bad! Pioneers, outlaws, prospector, and
all types set out to the American west in the 1800’s in search of the freedom and riches of an
ungoverned land. They left their old ways of life, which included any sense of hygiene back east.
This Is Nutty History! Today we are diving into what hygiene was like during the wild west.
But before we get started, subscribe to the channel and let us know in the
comments what disgusting times in history you want us to cover next. Now let’s get into it!
If you’ve ever been so mad you could spit, you’d feel right at home in the wild west.
It seems that outside of riding horses, and dying young from horrible diseases, hocking big gross
loogies was most cowboys favorite activity. Chewing tobacco and “dip” were the nicotine
fixes of choice in the wild west and both of those required users to frequently engage in
gross and juicy expectorations often in public. Most saloons were outfitted with a spittoon,
but not every customer had the greatest aim. Ew. Floors were covered in sawdust
so the spit and general dirt and grime could collect into big dusty spitballs and be cleaned
easier just by sweeping it into the street. These sawdust floors were breeding grounds for disease
and were often rented to travelers to sleep on. Better than a Ramada Inn, I guess.
This horrific hygiene wasn’t just due to tobacco use. Widespread pneumonia
and tuberculosis also brought on spitting, which in turn helped spread these diseases.
The public towels that saloons had at the bar for people to share and wipe foam off of their facial
hair definitely helped as well. When towns wanted to clean up their image, one of the first things
they’d do was create hygiene laws that forbade spitting in public. In some places spitting on
train platforms and stations was punishable with a $500 fine, a year in prison, or both.
A good night’s sleep was hard to come by in the wild west. But not because of crazy shootouts or
stampedes, it was due to all the bugs! Bad hygiene and lousy bedding made a restful night nearly
impossible for most people. The wealthy could afford an actual bed stuffed with cotton or down.
But most people could not afford that luxury so their hygiene suffered. Most folks had a mattress
stuffed with straw or hay which attracted lice. Folks in the wild west called these
nasty little critters seam squirrels as they came from the seams of their bedding. Somehow,
using a cute nickname just makes it worse. Many homes and hotels had screenless doors and windows,
allowing the always prevalent flies and mosquitos to buzz in during the night. When you lay down to
go to bed in the wild west, be prepared to do more slapping and scratching than sleeping!
Okay, so the everyday hygiene was pretty bad in the wild west,
but it’s not like they were walking around with rotten eggs in their hair...wait
a minute...they were? Never mind. People in the old west had a different idea of cleanliness
than modern folks and didn’t bathe regularly. But when they did bathe or wash their faces off, they
would sometimes wash their hair. This goes for men and women as a lot of men wore their hair long at
the time such as Wild Bill Hickok. The available soaps were harsh so they wanted something a little
more soothing on their scalps and they settled on eggs. Egg whites and sometimes egg yolks
were used as a shampoo and then brushed through the hair to keep it clean. People just had to
make sure the water wasn’t too hot though or else they’d end up with a head full of scrambled eggs.
Let’s not get it twisted, there wasn’t a huge demand for soap in the wild west. Hygiene was
bad and people just assumed they were going to stink. Stinking was a part of life and you just
got used to it. In fact, some people believed that too much cleanliness opened up your pores
to germs and disease and could make you sick! So it was healthier to be dirty! But when settlers
and pioneers did make soap, it was often when they were making use of a whole freshly killed animal.
People learned how to use every part of the animals they killed so they could survive.
Meat was butchered and cooked, with some preserved as long lasting jerky.
Hides were tanned to make leather. And fat was rendered to make candles and soap!
Making soap from animal fat has been around for centuries and has popped up in many societies.
It’s a simple and effective way to stay clean. Unfortunately homemade soap in the
wild west was often harsh and could cause skin irritation. So, people would rather just stink.
If you ever get tired of brushing your teeth all the time, then the wild west would have
been paradise! No brushing or flossing ever! Well, if you felt you had to brush, some train stations
had a few toothbrushes people could share. And if you needed to floss, you could use your knife. But
that’s it! And no dentists! So where do you go if you have a toothache or dentists don’t exist?
The barber of course! It makes perfect hygienic sense when you think about it.
Of course the person that cuts your hair is also the one to reach into your mouth with a pair of
pliers and yank out your tooth. That was pretty much the only type of dental surgery there was.
No matter what was bothering you, yanking it out was going to be the prescription. If you
didn’t care for your barber, blacksmiths were also called upon for a tooth yanking now and then. Oh
and there was no painkillers. Just whiskey. So you better hope that tooth comes out with one yank.
The wild west was a lot like 1980’s professional wrestling: It had a lot of Dusty Rhodes.
Dust was a constant in those days. Having a layer of dirt and grime on your skin was the norm.
You would sweat through that but after being outside a few minutes another
layer of dust would soon be caked on. It was necessary for everyone to wear a hat or bonnet
in order to bear down and protect their eyes when the gusts of dusty wind became unbearable. Keeping
the dust out of a home or business was almost a full-time job and required constant sweeping.
Dust storms were frequent and in some areas were so bad that they could blot out the sun,
making it seem like a brief nightfall in the middle of the day. The dust was not just a hygiene
issue but often caused lung problems for livestock and people, especially the young and the elderly.
In a totally not surprising move, the wild west put impractical and dangerous beauty standards on
women and drove them to life-threatening lengths to achieve them. The stinky, spitting, unhygienic
cowboys wanted women that had seemingly never been outside and had their skin touched by the sun.
Light, unblemished, porcelain skin was the impossible standard that was desired.
To achieve this, well off women covered their bodies as much as possible when outside;
going out in the summer heat in a full dress, bonnet, and long gloves. On top of that,
some would apply bleach to their skin, in an effort to lighten it even more.
Skin bleaching was dangerous and could leave burns and permanent scarring.
Disease was everywhere in the wild west. Waves of illness would run through towns and decimate
the population. Then the unhygienic wild west people would ask each other “why is there so
much disease?” while they gathered around the one single source of water that they used for their
laundry, plumbing, dishwashing and drinking. Stagnant water, unkempt outhouses, dust, bugs,
spitting and horrible hygiene made the wild west a virtual amusement park for viruses and bacteria.
Cholera was common because of the tainted water and bad hygiene.
Scarlet fever and smallpox ran rampant as well.
Homes in the wild west did not have running water. We know that people’s hygiene wasn’t the greatest
so it’s not like they were clamoring to wash their hands or take a bath every day. But no running
water also meant no toilet. So, the wild west was littered with outhouses. An outhouse was literally
a little house OUTSIDE your house. People would dig a hole in the ground and then build a little
shed around it. Then people would go out to that little shed to do their business in the hole.
Some were fancy and had a place you could sit and leaves or a corn cob you could wipe with.
Others were more basic and were just a hole with maybe a rope to hang onto as you leaned over it.
People would try to mask the notorious smells with lye or lime. The little shacks were usually
filled with bugs, especially flies and sometimes black widow spiders. When an outhouse’s hole was
filled to capacity, the owner had two choices: either find a place to empty the waste like a
body of water; or cover up the hole, dig a new one, pick up the outhouse and move it over.
These days it’s common to see a sewage treatment plant as you travel along the highway.
They treat sewage so that the water can be reused. Well, towns in the old west had a similar system.
They just skipped the part where you treat the sewage and take the nasty stuff out
before you reuse the water! Some towns were worse than others, but most places in the
wild west treated their water sources about as bad as they treated their personal hygiene.
Oftentimes a small stagnant pond would be used for sewage, laundry, dishes, and sometimes even
drinking water. If it wasn’t flowing into a larger body of water or was large enough, it
had no way of cleaning itself and the mess would just accumulate over time attracting bugs. Other
towns would take the leavings from their outhouses and dump them directly into a river or a stream.
A good idea if you’re the town that’s upstream. But if you’re the town that’s downstream...it’s
pretty crappy. Alcohol was the duct tape of the wild west. It could be used to fix anything.
Whiskey was used as antiseptic, poured over cuts and bruises to clean out wounds. Out of
all the nasty hygiene practices in the old west, this one was not that bad. We’re talking about
some pretty potent alcohol here. It was used as a painkiller to knock a patient out before surgery.
It was even strong enough to be used as fuel in a pinch. And when gold wasn’t available,
cash wasn’t trusted, and credit wasn’t possible bottles of whiskey were how deals were done.
But don’t think this is the same whiskey you stole swigs from your parent’s liquor cabinet.
These raw concoctions could knock the toughest cowboys off their feet. They included ingredients
like raw alcohol, burnt sugar, and chewing tobacco. This whiskey went by aptly descriptive
nicknames such as Coffin Varnish, Tarantula Juice, Red Eye, and later Fire Water. Beer was around but
nowhere near as popular as whiskey. Widespread refrigeration and pasteurization for beer wasn’t
available before 1880, so any beer served in the wild west saloons had to be served warm. Patrons
would have to drink their beer quickly or else it would go completely flat and get even hotter. And
no one likes warm beer...well except the Germans. And the last thing an unhygienic, wild west,
cowboy wants to do is to chug a bunch of warm flat beer and get gassy. So they stuck to the Tarantula
Juice thank you very much. If you want to make sure you always get the latest tarantula juice,
make sure you like and subscribe. Ring that bell so you never miss a video. Thanks for watching!