Feminine Hygiene

Hygiene and Good Habits are commonly understood as preventing infection through cleanliness. In broader call, scientific terms hygiene is the maintenance of health and healthy living. Hygiene ranges from personal hygiene, through domestic up to occupational hygiene and public health. more...

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Etymology

The term hygiene originates as a reference to Hygieia, who was a daughter of Asclepius and the goddess of health, cleanliness and sanitation. Hygiene is also a scientific study: The science that deals with the promotion and preservation of health. Also called hygienics.

History

Elaborate codes of hygiene can be found in several Hindu texts such as the Manusmriti and the Vishnu Purana. Bathing is one of the five Nitya karmas (daily duties) in Hinduism, not performing which leads to sin according to some scriptures. According to historian William Dalrymple, many early Christians considered one bath to be sufficient for purification for one lifetime, and considered regular bathing a heretical pagan ritual. According to him, the Europeans seem to have learned the habit of taking regular baths in the seventeenth century upon their colonization of India.

Benefits

Outward signs of good hygiene include the absence of visible dirt (including dust and stains on clothing) or of bad odor/smells. Since the development of the germ theory of disease, hygiene has come to mean any practice leading to the absence of harmful levels of bacteria.

Good hygiene is an aid to health, beauty, comfort, and social interactions. It directly aids in disease prevention and/or disease isolation. (That is, good hygiene will help keep one healthy and thus avoid illness. If one is ill, good hygiene can reduce one's contagiousness to others.)

Washing (with water) is the most common example of hygienic behavior. Washing is often done with soap or detergent which helps to remove oils and to break up dirt particles so they may be washed away. Frequent hand washing is among the most common hygienic advice.

Hygienic practices—such as frequent hand washing and the use of clean water or autoclaved (and thus sterilized) water in surgery/medical operations—have a profound impact on reducing the spread of disease. This is because they kill or remove disease-causing microbes (germs) in the immediate surroundings. For instance, washing one's hands after using the toilet and before handling food reduces the chance of spreading E. coli bacteria and Hepatitis A, both of which are spread from fecal contamination of food. Adequate hygiene requires an adequate and convenient supply of clean water.

Hygienic practices

Read more at Wikipedia.org