11 Astounding Facts About Pirate Hygiene You Never Heard Before

This will change the way you look at pirates

Photo by Sergey Semin on Unsplash

One of Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean album can be heard singing, Yo, ho, ho! A pirate’s life for me. It makes a catchy lyric for sure. But the person who had written this had no idea, how unbelievably disgusting and disease-ridden, a pirate’s living conditions were.

The absence of nutrition-rich food and constant exposure to unhygienic conditions made the sailors highly vulnerable to life-threatening illnesses. Plus, confined spaces on a ship and lack of access to clean water allowed these illnesses to spread to other crewmates quickly.

One look at the pirate hygiene conditions and you will find Caption Jack Sparrows look understated. Now, let's wash our hands before we go on this dirty and disease-ridden ship tour.

1. Pirates Shaved Only if They Trusted the Man Offering the Razor

Surgeons on pirate ships had to be multitasking, especially, in cases where trauma was involved. This gave the surgeons some experience with a razor while being on a moving, swaying ship.

According to John Woodhall’s 17th-century paper, The Surgeon’s Mate, ship surgeons would have had 10 razors onboard, with…