Do too many baths cause eczema in children?

The BBC reports:

A paper in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine says eczema is thought to be a trigger for other allergic conditions.

GP records of over 9m patients were used by researchers to assess how many people have the inflammatory skin disorder.

It showed that by 2005, one in nine of the population had, at some point, been affected by eczema.

The highest rate was in boys aged between five and nine.

An Englishman's Castle, ceasing upon the report's suggestion that one explanation for the rise is increased frequency of bathing and use of soap and detergents, declares:

Poor bloody kids, boys between the age of five and nine should only have a brief passing acquaintance with soap and water, it is all part of the feminisation of childhood.

This blog is all in favour of traditional urchins. And I have long been struck by the way that childcare advice takes it as axiomatic that every child will have a bath every day.

Take the BBC's own parenting pages:

Routines help children feel secure and there'll be less need for conflict if they expect things to happen in a certain way or at a particular time. For example, they'll (eventually) know it's bedtime after they've had a bath and brushed their teeth.

When and why did this strange assumption become universal?