A Short History of Nearly Everything

by Bill Bryson

‡We are actually getting worse at some matters of hygiene. Dr. Maunder believes that the move toward low-temperature washing machine detergents has encouraged bugs to proliferate. As he puts it: “If you wash lousy clothing at low temperatures, all you get is cleaner lice.”

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“You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family,” his father wrote in a line that nearly always appears just about here in any review of Darwin’s early life.