That's mostly an ahistorical meme. afaik the only historical basis is a brief period where public bath houses were shut down in parts of europe because there was plague going around. They shut the bath houses down because it was somewhere people congregated in large numbers, not because they thought bathing was bad for you. There may have been some quack doctors here and there, but for the most part Europeans have thought bathing was the coolest thing since the Romans turned up and introduced the idea of municipal bath houses. As far as I know folks mostly tried to get a real bath at least once a week when they could, and have always washed at least their hands, mouths, and faces if they couldn't manage more than that.,