Lecture 7- Sanitation and Waste Removal

Human waste

Every culture establishes procedures to remove human waste, kitchen waste water, and animal by products. Visit the links at PlumbingStore.com for brief descriptions on the history of plumbing in various cultures and time period.

Aristotle told Alexander the Great to instruct his troops to put human and animal waste away from the camp.

Outdoor drainage ditches, latrines, and cesspools are fairly universal. Indoors squat holes, toilets, and drainage systems using copper, bronze, clay, terracotta, and lead pipes were reported variously in Egypt, Minoa, Greece, Rome, Middle Ages. Iron and cast iron pipes replaced copper, in turn to be replaced by plastic pipes.

In Egypt among the wealthy a small recessed room with a hole, drainpipe, and covering limestone slab was found for shower water (usually hand poured by a servant) and human waste. Waste was collected in a large bowl below and later removed.

In Minoan stone shafts were constructed as chutes for household refuse. A terracotta drainage system carried water to pottery pipes. Since the Palace of Minos was built on hillside, runoff was directed to a main drain that emptied into River Kairatos.

In Jerusalem human waste was collected and carted outside the city passing through "Dung Gate." Settling basins were used to separate waste and water, waste would be used as fertilizer.

In Greece (Missiles of mirth-Aeshylus), Rome (law called Dejecti Effusive Act fined person who poured chamber pot out window during daytime), and Medieval Europe (chamber pots were emptied out the windows on the streets and alleyways "woe be to passing strollers," "gardez l'eau - watch out for the water ... loo") or in ditches that flowed into cesspools, or eventually drained in to waterways.

Ernest L. Sabine. "Latrines and Cesspools of Mediaeval London." Speculum 9,(3) (July, 1934): 303-321.

In medieval cities human waste was tossed over castle walls or privies or "garderobes were built with separate flues, from which could pass thru the stonework to a stream flowing below" (see Sabine link).

Privies were built within castles walls, within towers, within turrets, within chimneys, within chambers corbelled out over the water of the moats, within chambers on arches over the water, with pipes pipe drains, and with cesspools. (Sabine p. 305). Ditches, moats, and public latrines used available flowing water to sluice away filth (Sabine p. 306)

London Bridge has several privies -- "necessary houses or wardrobes." A number of public latrines were built by taxpayer money.

London dwellers dumped their filth and kitchen orts into streams and rivers to the point where in many the flow was stopped. They became unsanitary sources of nuisance, leading to complaints, requiring cleanup.

Cesspools were numerous and sources of noxious odors and contamination for wells as well as sites of accidents were pedestrians or rakers fell in and drown (Sabine).

In Japan human waste was collected in "honey" buckets at night by the eta and used for fertilizer.

In many cultures the smell of human excrement and urine remains one of the most common odors.

History of the toilet

Animal waste

Add material from Robinson.

Ernest L. Sabine. "Butchering in Mediaeval London." Speculum 8,(3) (July, 1933): 335-353.

Bathing

Bathing was practiced for religious ritual, relaxation, cleanliness, bodily and mental fitness, or sociability.

In Greece, free citizens were bathed at birth, before marriage, and after death. Hippocrates contended bathing was relaxing and healthful. Removal or sweat, dirt, and hair with curved knives, a cold bath, and scented oil following exercise was routine in gymnos. The gymnos was site for training and educational enrichment for the Greeks.

Site prepared by Mikkel Aaland peruse see Mediterrean Baths

Rome had a most hydraulic culture. They moved water great distance using gravity drop for water flow, aqueducts some 200 miles by 52 AD, underground tunnels, pipes, sewers (e.g., Cloaca Maxima), dams, drains, and pumps. By 4th century AD Rome had 11 public baths and 1352 public fountains.

Important feature of Roman culture was the thermae -- the bath. Public baths served thousands of bathers. The largest were the baths of Caracalla covering 28 acres with seating for 3000 bathers. The bath was a sensate experience as well as an opportunity for sociability. Bath houses were places for exercise and bathing. Public baths had a dressing room, warm ante-rooms to start perspiration (tepidarium), hot room to sweat (caldarium), cold rooms to cool down (frigidarium), and pools also were cold, tepid, and hot. The bath was a place to purge the body of excesses. It was deemed important for health and cleanliness. (Note public bath water was not circulated, filtered or regularly replaced. It was filthy. This standard of water quality persisted for centuries.) Public baths were open for citizens, supported by fees-- thus the citizenry, the rich, not the poor. Fees for entry varied for males and females, and adults and children. It was a male dominated environment. Women were expected to pay 2x as much as men. Child were free. It was a place to socialize. Social etiquette demanded that one not stare at nude bathers of the opposite sex. Nonetheless baths were places to conduct not only political affairs, but engage in sexual affairs - often stimulating public outrage and moral crackdowns. In fact, women who attended bathes had no claim to respectability.

Private baths were common with some 856 private baths by the 4th century AD. Water was delivered to house under contract. Houses were designed so that a fire on the bottom floor could heat rooms above frigidarium cold rooms, tepidarium moderately warm rooms, and caldarium hottest rooms. Piped water was also heated by passing above the fire.

Roman Baths and Bathing by Barbara F. McManus

Bathing in Medieval Period England, Aquae Sulis a bath on some 23 acres was built in Bath Britain using the heated mineral spring waters. Remained operational until the sixth century AD when Roman garrisons were ousted. With the decline of Roman influence and rise of Christianity the value of cleanliness declined. Don't bathe, it washes away holy water. Public bath houses became centers for hot houses, stews, bordellos and eventually were closed.

Bath Britain site prepared by Mary Ann Sullivan Bluffton College

Note a google search on "roman baths" yields lots of good sources.

Add materials from lecture on home computer.

Notions of cleanliness

Kathleen Brown's Homepage University of Pennsylvania - click on Cleanliness and follow links

Bathing in modern era

History of sewers

Sanitation Movement