Medieval Waste Management

The bubonic plague is a bacterial disease that is considered one of the most lethal in history. Recorded pandemics of the plague reach back to 541 A.D. and minor epidemics can still be found around the world (Plague). The plague consists of a bacterium called Yersinia pestis. This bacterium has the ability to mutate quickly and can easily destroy the immune system of the infected person, “it does this by injecting toxins into defense cells such as macrophages that are tasked with detecting bacterial infections. Once these cells are knocked out, the bacteria can multiply unhindered.” (Plague) The bubonic plague has a number of symptoms ranging from a headache to seizures. The most distinguishable

The answer lies in the climate fostered in Victorian England. It was one of unparalleled progress due to exploding industrialization of cities with modern factories, production processes, and advanced engineering. This exciting era also brought momentous discoveries in Geology, Astronomy, and the sciences. Discoveries like electricity and vaccines made a huge difference in the citizen’s quality of life. However, even though there was much advancement, the unsafe sanitation

Public health may have remained a pool of disease was it not for the reforms made in the middle ages Though the town authorities tried their best, London was probably the most unsanitary town in England. Slowly, however, rules were made and enforced. In 1301 four women butchers were fined for throwing the blood and guts of slaughtered animals into the street. By 1370, 12 teams of 'muck' collectors combed the streets for animal and human excrement - money could be made out of it by selling it to local farmers (which helped further spread the various diseases…)

In “Picking Up” Robin Nagle enthusiastically describes why New York City’s Department of Sanitation is so significant to our day to day city life. This department picks up about 11,000 tons of trash as well as 2,000 tons of recycling daily. If it was not for them the city would be completely unlivable. As the anthropologist-in-residence for New York City's Department of Sanitation, Robin Nagle explains with many explanations why The Department of Sanitation is so vital and why they are just as important as any police officer or fireman out there. If it was not for those men and woman who remove our trash and recyclables, our city would be completely over run with trash. Not only is this completely disgusting, but there are so many diseases

It is hard to imagine in the twenty first century the level of filth that was experienced in the 1830’s on a daily basis. Sanitation, public health and sewer systems were problems that gripped the nation throughout the ninetieth century (1830-1860s), encouraging popular debate and proposal of changes. The growth of population and increase in the industry

At the same time, Britain became more industrialized, towns started to grow and became over populated especially factory towns. Houses in these factory towns were close together, and because of this the living conditions in these houses were overcrowded, damp and dirty. People ate, slept and cooked in the same places. There were no sewers so there was human waste everywhere, because of the

Public health can be dated back to the Romans whom understood even during this time frame that proper division of human waste was a necessary tenant of public health in urban areas. Even dating as early as 1000 BC, the Chinese developed the practice of variolations

In 1309 any one dumping on the streets were fined and the fines were not enforced and little for their culture was done other than pay the fines to collect the money and the rich London Aires were glad to receive those cash. There were three professions to clean the dirty cities of London. The task was consequently messy and harmful to the health of the workers. The worker was to take the filthy trash and waste outside of the city however, most of it was taken to other people land.

On the other end of the society scale, the working poor were working and living in unbearable conditions. There were no irrigation systems, running water or any way of preserving hygiene in the homes or the factories. The working poor lived in slums and tenements which were breeding grounds for diseases. In the book, “The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844” by Friedrich Engels, he states, “...at the end of the covered passage, a privy without a door, so dirty that the inhabitants can pass into and out of the court only by passing through foul pools of stagnant urine and excrement.” (page 78)1. This gives us a peek into the horrible unsanitary conditions that the working class were forced to endure while the business owners were living in beautiful mansions and summer houses.

The Roman Empire provided a healthier place to live than the Roman Republic because of its superior sanitation. According to the textbook, poor sanitation due to factors such as insufficient drainage had been a serious problem in Rome during the Republic but was reduced substantially during the Empire (164-165). At any time, public hygiene is an issue that affects the quality of life for everyone, including the “average” citizen. Poor sanitation can lead to the rapid spreading of diseases, which usually results in

In American industrial cities, late 1800s, Poor neighborhood were not the best place to live. With poor living conditions, poor sanitation and crowded housing, many epidemics of infectious disease spread into the poor population and touched even the wealthy class. Cities such as New York were crowded and workers were living in tenements, which were often cramped, poorly lit and poorly aerated. Moreover, these tenements lacked of adequate plumbing, therefore waste was flooding in the public streets. Streets was crowded of waste and garbage. Population was poorly nourished and has a poor life hygiene like water pollution and poisoned food and milk. Accordingly, infectious disease was the common death reason. Big cities had known outbreaks of

The video presented by Steven Johnson gives us a glimpse of a cholera outbreak that happened in the city of London during this time period. He begins by describing the living conditions in the early days of London. He mentions filth and refuse being thrown in the basement of houses and in the streets, he mentions livestock roaming freely, and he explicitly described the stench which was so abhorrent, that it was offensive just to walk around the city. Initially the emerging public health system believed that the stench was causing the disease thus they implemented the “nuisances act” an early public health intervention which instead of making things better just aggravated the problem.

In the summer of 1854, London was coming out as one of the most modern cities in the world. With nearly 2.4 million people living in the area at the time, the city’s infrastructure itself was having a hard time providing for the basic needs of its residents. The biggest problem existing within the city at that time was its waste removal system, or for better terms, its lack of one. Human waste was piling up everywhere, from people houses to the rivers and drinking water. This situation was the perfect breeding conditions for a number of diseases, and towards the end of that summer, one of the most deadly of them all took over. It took the work of both a physician and a local minister in order to discover the mysterious cause of the

Ian Mortimer uses his book The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century to describe how one might live in the fourteenth century. This book covers a wide range of topics from what one might see and smell when approaching a city, to what one might wear, to how to stay alive. Mortimer’s clever use of a travel guide inspired book lends itself to a much wider audience. The evidence presented in this book is both engaging and intriguing, and provides easy reading for academics and non-academics both.

Proper waste removal and sanitation did not become a priority for our government until the mid to late 1800s. People in America did not relate filth to disease and did not care much about proper sanitation. In England the sanitation theory that proposed that filth contributed to human illness became word-of-mouth and eventually made its way to America. Although America was becoming more urbanized; pigs, goats, dogs and other stray animals were free to roam and eat all the garbage that they could in the streets. Some cities such as Charleston, West Virginia established an act to prohibit hunting vultures only because they helped with the city’s garbage.