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Nature 450, 482 (22 November 2007) | doi:10.1038/450482a; Published online 21 November 2007

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Dishing the dirt on hygiene

Virginia Smith1

BOOK REVIEWEDThe Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History

by Katherine Ashenburg

North Point Press: 2007. 368 pp. $24
Knopf Canada: 2007. 368 pp. Can$35

Nothing on cleanliness for 50 years and then two books come along at once — mine and Katherine Ashenburg's The Dirt on Clean. If anyone ever wanted to know about the biological, psychological, social and technical history of cleansing, it's all out there now.