In the coronavirus lockdown days we have all been washing our hands so much one sometimes falls into a hand washing reverie. Besides red hands and cracked skin —it seems I often find myself drifting off mentally during the 20 seconds needed generate the lovely bubbles and lather to fully get the soap into those deep cracks on old, arthritic and hard working hands. On more than one hand washing occasions I imagined events relating to the long and intimate history humans have with common soap.
As the lather formed and the hot water gurgled down the drain I imagined how the origin of our relationship with soap may have happed— some 50,000 years ago. Perhaps it was at a prehistoric Neanderthal campsite in sunny southern France—on a steep rocky hillside where a jumble of fallen rocks had formed a small enclosure on a wide ledge in front of the dark, gaping mouth of a limestone cave.
In my reconstruction a family group of Neanderthal hunters had taken up residence at the cave site. On this imagined day the men of the group set out on a hunt and coming upon the spoor of game near-by followed the cloven-hoof tracks and places of gouged up soil, the signs of a wild boar— into a near-by forest. Hunting cooperatively they sent two of their group ahead as the remainder turned to hallowing and noisemaking to drive the grunting beast toward the two members hidden and waiting behind a thicket. The two men, their stout spear shafts, tipped with long finely formed chert stone points, at the ready waited in silence. As the beast rushed passed their hide-out they struck. The large adult boar— it’s bristly haired hide pierced with two darts, the shafts dangling and bobbing as it ran, did not go far before it collapsed. The hunters quickly found it and with the beast, which they had heaved to their shoulders slung from a stout length of an oak branch they carried the hairy tusker back to camp.
There, the old boar was butchered and large chunks of its fatty meat, pierced by thick wood skewers, was set over a deep bed of glowing hardwood coals . As the smoke rose and the meat charred over the hot fire, members of the band, unable to resist the aroma, and their mouth’s watering in anticipation, stooped to pick from the ground discarded flakes of razor sharp chert. These fragments, scatted on the ground and the result of the near continuous process of stone tool making in a Neolithic camp site could be likened to our kitchen knife drawer. Each member grasping the dull side of the chert or flint flake in his hand and tipping his face away from the flames, approached and gingerly sliced at the hot meat with the sharp stone fragment, detaching choice morsels of the still blood-red steaming meat. They grunted in satisfaction as the pieces they chose, glistening with fat from the glow of the fire, disappeared rapidly between their lips; lips partly hidden by their dark curly beards. Slowly, as each member cut away more portions, sharing them with other members of their family, only ragged remnants of the skin, bones and joints remained suspended over the fire. The now sated band slowly retired toward the cave mouth or collapsed in stupor to stare dumbly at the fire where the coals slowly cooled and darkness of a starry night descended on the cave site and its occupants.
The night cooled and below a star studded sky the glow of the fire diminished but the remnant heat at the fire pit continued to render the solid white fat from the scraps of meat and charred skin still set over the fire pit. The fat dripped into the coals—now and then causing the fire to flare up into a yellowish light. Through much of the night the slow drip of rendered boar fat accumulated into a small puddle among the gray, powdery-ash covered coals. By morning the fire pit had cooled and the fat throughly mixed with ash had congealed into a sticky, viscous gray material studded with scattered fragments of charcoal.
The day dawned cloudy and an early rain rain kept the small band huddled together at the mouth of the cave. By noon, the sun broke through the clouds and its radiant heat warmed the rocks around the now cold fire pit and this warm cozy place attracted the younger members of the band.
One of the female youngsters—perhaps her empty stomach rumbling—sought out the now soaked fire pit where this minor, was attracted to a crispy piece of meat still attached to the sharpened end of the wood skewer. The child pulled the stake from the pit. She noticed that something with an unusual appearance remained adhering to the base of the stick. The substance was gray with specks of charcoal. Touching revealed that it was soft and sticky with a pleasant smooth, slippery feel to it. The child rubbed the gray gritty goo between her hands. The slippery feel remained even as she slid her hands repeatedly over the roe-deer skin girdle she wore around her waist. She ran off to the near by stream, where dipping her hands in the cool running water and rubbing them together , she saw bubbles appear on her fingers—just is like those that she had seen form at base of waterfall just above the camp. As the water ran over her hands the slippery feeling on her hands slowly disappeared as the water ran over them —but what also disappeared with the flowing water was the embedded stains of charcoal, soil and grease which had adhered to her hands from last nights feast.
The youngster —enjoying the experience—ran back to the fire pit and taking up the gooey substance again repeated the whole cycle again. This time sharing her experience with her brother. Then the other kids wanted to try it too.
And so long ago arose our relationship with soap. An informal one at first. It took many more thousands of years before civilizations arose and the division of labor and specialization in occupations took place. But give it time.
Archeologists studying the earliest civilizations in the Middle East tell us that it was in Mesopotamia along the Euphrates River —perhaps 5000 years ago (about 2800BC) people in what would later become Babylonia (in modern day Iraq) were actually making soap on a large scale for use by the community.
Evidences in the form of fragments of ceramic containers with faint remains of mixtures of wood ash and animal and plant fats indicate that Babylonians —almost 1000 years before the rise of the famous Hammurabi (the Code giver) —were making soap by mixing wood ash with fats in large vats.. Archeological evidence indicates that the use of this substance was not for personal hygiene, but more likely was a relatively strong (harsh?) substance used to clean products like wool and other fibers prior to use in manufacture of textiles. As well as cleaning textiles such as wool, soap with its “slippery feel” was also used as a lubricant to “grease’ wheel hubs on carts or wagons, or to decrease friction on moving parts in primitive machinery.
We find similar stories of soap use in Egypt, Greece and Rome. In these ancient times soap was not much in use for personal hygiene, but used as a lubricant and grease, oil and fat remover in the preparation of textiles and other cleaning processes. In Ancient Rome the gooey substance (as Pliny the Elder @ 65AD) claims that soap was used as a hair pomade—but not for washing. For personal hygiene, Romans preferred to rub olive oil into the skin and then remove the oil (and the dirt) with a scraping tool called a strigil. Only late in the Roman Empire did they begin to use “soap” probably getting the idea of its use from the Celts and Gauls who did—occasionally—bathe
As a boy I was washed up in the bath with a harsh brown soap called “Octagon Soap”. The big brown bar had eight sides—thus the name. It came wrapped up in paper—no big plastic containers for soap in those days. The bar soap was practical and “green” it came in a paper wrapper and with use it slowly disappeared down the drain as it took the dirt away. All you had to dispose of was the little paper wrapper. That went into the box for fire-starting paper—so it was put to good use too. Mother used a soap called Castile soap—it was made not with animal fats but with olive oil (and other oils too) and was more gentle on the skin. the name was derived from Castile in Spain where this soap had its origins in the late Middle Ages.
Also in my youth soap could be used to unfairly torture a boy—as punishment. Perhaps this unnamed youngster while eavesdropping on elders conversation —hear them use a bad word and then this youngster—not knowing the meaning of said word —repeated it front of mother or father. A little bit of Octagon soap on the tongue would make that young nosey person remember not to repeat that word again. Or at least not to do so in the hearing of someone an authority who had a bar of soap handy.
In the Middle Ages in the Arab World true soap was made using wood ashes and olive oils and other oils. The soaps were made fragrant with the addition of oils extracted from flowers such as roses, lavender, mints and others.
But what is it and how does it work?
We all know that oils and water do not mix. They are two different substances and stir and mix as hard as we might in a glass with oil and water the oil stays on top and the water (heavier) sinks to the bottom. Soap is a substance having properties of both oil and water. The soap molecule has two parts —one end that will dissolve in oil and the other end of the same molecule that will dissolve in(or be attracted to) water. That is the key to its usefulness.
Soap is prepared—as noted above__ by mixing an alkali (a chemical base) with a fat or oil so as to cause the two to chemically interact. The reaction produces a new substance —a new molecule neither oil or water but with characteristics of both.
The strong base or alkali found in wood ashes is the substance combines with the oil or fat to produce the soap molecule. That word “alkali” is by the way that is another one of those fairly common words we get from the Arabic—from the word “al qaly” which means “ash”.
The fact that soap can dissolve into fats but is also able to attach to water molecules is what causes the process of bubble formation (the lathering process) so obvious when one washes one’s hands. Water molecules are attracted to each other (they “like” to stick together) so when you wash your hands with soap the long tail (oil side) of the soap molecule that is attracted to fats dissolves in the soiled surface on your skin. The other end of the soap molecule —the water attracting side—tends to attach to other water molecules. The attraction of the oil molecules to each other is less than the attraction the water molecules have for each other. Thus the fats and oils are pulled off of your skin by the soap molecule and are carried away with the water.
Another process going on is that soap produces bubbles when air is trapped in the water-soap mixture. The lather formed in the process, actually helps to lift and carry off the tiny particles of “dirt” by driving them to the top surface of the bubbles—through a microscope you can see each bubble with a tiny piece of debris on its top surface— and in this way the dirt particles are lifted up and sloughed off as the lather is washed away with the flowing water.
Soap’s capacity to dissolve and carry away fats as well as the bubbling action which helps loft particulates and carry these away is why soap is such a good cleaning agent. In certain cases soap can act to kill germs too. In the case of certain viruses soap’s attraction for fats can pull apart the fatty sheath that surrounds the virus’ interior structure. When the fatty covering is removed the interior of the virus where the RNA or DNA is stored is then exposed to the action of water, air or other denaturing chemicals which destroy it. So soap has the ability in some circumstances kill viruses.
And that ends our soapy reverie—I hope you all think about these things even if its only for those 20 seconds or so—while the lather is building up and the little bubbles are searching out the embedded viruses and other dirt in the fine cracks and crevices in your hands.
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