The 7 worst jobs in human history

Every profession has some of its own advantages, disadvantages or difficulties. However, the vast majority of people generally prefer to talk about their difficulties rather than the advantages of their profession. Somewhere in the world, even as you are reading this article, a person is talking about how hard, impossible, and bad their profession is. However, when it comes to difficult professions, it is worth tinkering with the dusty pages of history. Because history has truly been full of unusual, interesting, challenging and even repulsive professions. The only requirement for some professions in history was to resist being beaten! Here are the 7 worst jobs in history, from plague carrier to poo nanny.

1. Grooming the stool

At the top of our list of the 10 worst jobs in history is one that many people don’t even want to get close to. For this profession, which is also called a groomer or a stool-servant, really requires the fulfillment of a number of duties bordering on disgust.

Stool care was a profession that emerged in England in the fourteenth century and did not disappear from the scene of history until the early twentieth century. But the nearly 500-year-old profession handbook was full of gruesome scenes that most people couldn’t imagine. Because the grooms of the stool were responsible for keeping the king’s toilet clean. More precisely, they were responsible for maintaining “the king’s cleanliness in the toilet.” Yes, the grooms of the stool were the attendants who flushed the royalty down the toilet, in a sense, they provided a special cleaning service.

Nevertheless, it was a very popular and attractive profession in England at that time, although it is considered completely repulsive by today’s standards. So much so that the majority of those who wanted to continue their lives as stool workers were young men from noble families. Because being a stool keeper required being close to the king in every sense of the word due to the nature of the profession. This closeness means being strong materially, spiritually and politically.

2. The skin of youth

Some of the worst occupations in history were downright disgusting, like cleaning excrement, and some were extremely dangerous. Child whipping is one of the most dangerous professions in history. The phrase “leather boy” used today to refer to “one who is easily scolded and angered by everyone” was the name given to a very interesting profession and those who practiced it in ancient times of history.

In monarchies, for young, educated kings and princes, the skin of the boys was the one who was beaten in place. In the era of monarchy in history, it was not possible for young kings or future royal candidates to be punished for their mistakes. At this point, competent specialists, the Boy Scouts, came to the rescue of the palace circuits. When a young king or prince sinned, the boy was severely beaten, and this beating was intended as a lesson to the king or prince.

3. Sewer fishing

Some of the worst jobs in history require a very strong stomach. As you can imagine, sewage fishing was one of them. Sewer hunting, as the name suggests, was a very challenging line of work, as all sorts of valuables were searched for in the sewers, but most of the time, all sorts of sewage waste were found instead of valuables.

4. Pure discovery

The printing industry in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was very different from what it is today. First of all, most of the books published in that period were bound in leather. These bindings have been processed in tanneries. These tanneries began various searches in order to dry leather book covers more quickly. It didn’t take long to find the needed solution: dog poo! Yes, dog feces helped the leather that was produced as book binding dry in a much shorter time than usual. For this reason, dog excrement became a very important production material for the tanneries of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Thus a new type of business appeared, whose function was to collect dog feces throughout the day and supply it to tanneries. On the other hand, the purer the dog’s feces, the higher its value. That is why those who work in this new type of business were called pure finders, and the profession itself was called pure finders.

5. Wool padding

Wool became one of the most important items of the English economy in the Middle Ages. For this reason, it was a very popular and valuable product at the time. Accordingly, the English nobility took care to ensure that their woolen clothes were especially clean. In addition, fabrics can be made into more comfortable garments through a process called padding. Of course, the English nobility needed people who would take better care of their woolen clothes, keeping them clean and fluffy. Here the woolen filler emerged from this need.

So how do fleece fillings work? In fact, it is safe to say that those who do this job are physically challenged. Because the workers in this sector fill the woolen cloths in a barrel and then tread on the cloths almost all day long. In this way, the fabrics get rid of tough stains. But perhaps the hardest aspect of the job for many of the wool plumbers was not this intense and grueling physical activity. Because the material used in the blowing process was nothing but human urine. In other words, workers in this sector spent most of their days in barrels full of urine.

6. Sin eater

An unusual profession emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, especially in England and Wales. The so-called sin-eaters are also found in other parts of Europe, but England and Wales were the places where the sin-eaters fared the best.

Among the worst professions in history, the sin eater was hardly physically demanding. When a person dies, their relatives who wanted the deceased to be cleansed of their sins and go to heaven without any problems, apply to professionals who are called sin-eaters. Later, the sin-eater, who came to the funeral home, left a piece of bread on the body of the deceased, and then ate the bread. Because it was believed that the sins of the deceased were transferred to this bread, and the one who ate the bread, that is, the one who ate the sin, took these sins upon himself.

However, a sin eater was not a welcome profession in the eyes of society. First of all, most of the untouchables worked in this sector. However, it was believed that the sin-eater becomes more sinful and a worse person after each shift.

7. The Plague Carrier

The plague killed 69,000 people in London, England in 1665. As a result, burying those who lost their lives to the plague turned into a huge problem. On the other hand, there was a need for brave people who could collect people who died from the plague from the streets and bury them. And so, the carriers of the plague wandered around London on dark city nights …

Plague bearers were responsible for finding people who had lost their lives to the plague and burying them in mass graves, and they performed a profession that required sacrifice. Because in order to eliminate the possibility of spreading the plague themselves, they secluded themselves in churches where there were mass graves and led a life apart from society.