Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Ancient Roman toilets did not improve sanitation
Popular Archaeology ^ | Thursday, January 07, 2016 | University of Cambridge

Posted on 01/08/2016 1:49:16 AM PST by SunkenCiv

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-63 next last
To: SunkenCiv

The parasites are from not cooking foods thoroughly. Crapping in a toilet or in the dirt isn’t gonna change that. The damned parasites neither prove nor disprove anything.

I do wonder about the baths, though. No chlorine. How often was that bath water changed during the day? Seems to me that public baths in that era served as no more than petri dishes.

Warm water, oils and other nutrients from skin and such like... mix in masses of bacteria from hordes of bathers...
http://www.impetigopictures.org


41 posted on 01/08/2016 12:15:49 PM PST by Grimmy (equivocation is but the first step along the road to capitulation)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: knarf

Say what you want about the French, but the rest of the world are heathens compared to them when it comes to the Bidet... seriously, here’s some tissue paper, keep whiping till your clean... vs, heres some water and soap to wash it all away..

I think that lone gives them a bit of a right, as much as we hate to admit it, to be a little smug.


42 posted on 01/08/2016 12:16:35 PM PST by HamiltonJay
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Covenantor

Someone I’ve known online for years related a story about a woman who entered the Peace Corps, wound up in, I believe it was, S Korea. She’d never used an outhouse before.

She’d definitely never used one in rural Korea before.

The outhouses back up into the pig pens, for, uh, shall we say, recycling, sustainable animal husbandry, and diversity?

She got ‘snouted’.

Next plane home.


43 posted on 01/08/2016 12:18:29 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Here's to the day the forensics people scrape what's left of Putin off the ceiling of his limo.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv
She got 'snouted'.

Is that like being 'schlonged'?

44 posted on 01/08/2016 12:19:17 PM PST by dfwgator
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]

To: Grimmy

The Romans didn’t use valves very much, so all the baths had slow-in, slow-out water flow, iow, analogous to the way large buildings in the modern era change over the air. Baths which were not fed by aqueduct (like Aquae Solis, at modern Bath in England) were spring-fed, and the water cycled in, was used, and cycled out. The biggest problem would have been typhus, and there aren’t any known large outbreaks of that during Roman times. The plague in Athens during the Age of Pericles has been attributed to typhus, and it was a commonplace in the Nazis’ extermination camps.


45 posted on 01/08/2016 12:22:19 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Here's to the day the forensics people scrape what's left of Putin off the ceiling of his limo.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 41 | View Replies]

To: dfwgator

;’)


46 posted on 01/08/2016 12:22:46 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Here's to the day the forensics people scrape what's left of Putin off the ceiling of his limo.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 44 | View Replies]

To: samtheman

... In addition to that, test the wine for lead...


47 posted on 01/08/2016 12:27:39 PM PST by Rurudyne (Standup Philosopher)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv

Kim chee waste plus snorting hot wet pig snout butt snorkling in the dark... we are the world, sing it girl!

What’s the Korean word for Surprise!
;>)


48 posted on 01/08/2016 12:28:21 PM PST by Covenantor (Men are ruled...by liars who refuse them news, and by fools who cannot govern - Chesterton)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv
I'd love to see the same effin' archaeologists study the old outhouse sites and 19th c dumps, and see what they find there.

They'd talk about the local parasites and, as an aside, mention that they were avid readers of Sears and Roebuck periodicals as well paying tribute to some unknown god of agriculture by tossing corn cobs into the pit.

49 posted on 01/08/2016 12:35:32 PM PST by Covenantor (Men are ruled...by liars who refuse them news, and by fools who cannot govern - Chesterton)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]

To: Covenantor

...and somehow work global warming and gay marriage into the paper.


50 posted on 01/08/2016 12:42:24 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Here's to the day the forensics people scrape what's left of Putin off the ceiling of his limo.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 49 | View Replies]

The Iceman’s Stomach Bugs Offer Clues to Ancient Human Migration
smithsonianmag | 01/07/2016 | Brian Handwerk
Posted on 01/07/2016 7:00:24 PM PST by BenLurkin
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3381071/posts

Neanderthals boosted our immune system
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft | January 07, 2016 | SJ/HR
Posted on 01/07/2016 10:51:53 PM PST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3381108/posts


51 posted on 01/08/2016 12:42:39 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Here's to the day the forensics people scrape what's left of Putin off the ceiling of his limo.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: HamiltonJay
No argument here ...

I visited my brother a couple of years ago and he had one in his bathroom

Fancy clicker and all

Now, I have a bidet ....

I don't understand why Americans don't adopt it

52 posted on 01/08/2016 1:15:15 PM PST by knarf (I say things that are true .... I have no proof ... but they're true.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv
Middens (trash dumps) and old outhouse holes are great places to find artifacts, and are revealing about a culture. Diet, among other things can be determined, often bodies are found in either place, and in the case of old outhouses weapons are not uncommon. As for parasites, bacteria and the like, outhouses can be unpleasant and a place to pick them up. Contamination of the food supply can occur from field to face, so to speak, and washing hands and food, thorough cooking, and clean dishes/utensils, can be as important in preventing disease as basic sanitation.

It is a testament to the effectiveness of the systems, when one considers military encampments and assemblages of refugees in much more modern times ravaged by epidemics, that the sanitation systems of the Romans permitted so many to live so close without massive ill effect.

53 posted on 01/08/2016 1:54:18 PM PST by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv

Yep,concur!


54 posted on 01/08/2016 2:56:46 PM PST by BobL (Who cares? He's going to build a wall and stop this invasion.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]

To: Covenantor

Squee? Oink? Chop Sooo-eeee?


55 posted on 01/08/2016 3:03:52 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Here's to the day the forensics people scrape what's left of Putin off the ceiling of his limo.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 48 | View Replies]

To: Smokin' Joe

Most Roman homes didn’t have kitchens, that was something found in finer homes. Many people ate wherever they found themselves when they were hungry, so there were a lot of streetside takeaways. It just shows how tough humans actually are, and how we probably coddle ourselves too much nowadays.


56 posted on 01/08/2016 3:11:50 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Here's to the day the forensics people scrape what's left of Putin off the ceiling of his limo.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 53 | View Replies]

To: samtheman

Or drink wine or low alcohol beer, the old method of assuring safe “drinking water”.


57 posted on 01/08/2016 3:20:49 PM PST by Pelham (Muslim immigration...the enemy is inside the wire.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv

>>Mitchell also found that, despite their famous culture of regular bathing, ‘ectoparasites’ such as lice and fleas were just as widespread among Romans as in Viking and medieval populations, where bathing was not widely practiced.<<

Nit picking wasn’t invented yet?


58 posted on 01/08/2016 7:48:37 PM PST by ApplegateRanch (Love me, love my guns!�)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ApplegateRanch

They didn’t have the internet, so, no. ;’)


59 posted on 01/08/2016 8:46:29 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Here's to the day the forensics people scrape what's left of Putin off the ceiling of his limo.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 58 | View Replies]

To: Covenantor
Flash forward to 2016/16 and one will still find evidence, and posted signs telling folks "DO NOT STAND ON TOILET" in hotels and public buildings today in most cosmopolitan Asian (China, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, i.e.) cities.

Most publicly used facilities also will include one "slit toilet" on the floor for those who refuse to use modern "set-down" toilets.
They can be detected by their "fragrance."
60 posted on 01/09/2016 5:52:53 PM PST by Tainan (Cogito, ergo conservatus sum -- "The Taliban is inside the building")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-63 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson