The brick-built cistern (context 1154) during excavation in 2021 (photographs and illustration by Sovrintendenza Capitolina—The Caesar's Forum Project).Credit: Antiquity (2023). DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2023.34
Posted on 05/10/2023 8:09:07 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The Forum in Rome, dedicated to Julius Caesar, was completed in 46 B.C. as a site for conducting public business generally related to the Roman Senate. Much later, during the 16th century, the site was still usable—Renaissance-era people used it as a hospital. Doctors of the time knew that diseases could be infectious, so they set up protocols for dealing with them and the clothes and tools used to treat ill patients.
Prior research has shown that doctors and medical researchers in Italy played a major role in establishing protocols, such disposal of instruments after a single use, and disposing of potentially contaminated belongings by burning or burying them. In this new effort, the research team found evidence of such protocols in practice—a landfill next to what was once a hospital where people of the time buried or discarded materials associated with caring for sick people.
The landfill was discovered just two years ago, and since that time, teams of archaeologists have been slowly digging out the material discarded there to learn more about Renaissance-era medical practices. The team in this new effort focused their efforts on a cistern that was found in the landfill.
The researchers note that the cistern had been intentionally sealed with a clay cap after it was filled with medical waste. Removal of the cap showed that the cistern had been filled with a large array of beads, jars, figurines and even coins, but most notably, with matula—glass urine flasks. Prior research has shown that doctors used such flasks to examine urine samples to spot symptoms of diseases such as diabetes or jaundice.
The researchers also found lead clamps in the cistern, remnants from furniture that had been burned due to the suspicion of a patient infected with the plague.
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
The brick-built cistern (context 1154) during excavation in 2021 (photographs and illustration by Sovrintendenza Capitolina—The Caesar's Forum Project).Credit: Antiquity (2023). DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2023.34
Yikes, talk about digging in Pandora’s Box! Can 500 year old medical waste still be infectious after having been buried that long? I sure wouldn’t want to find out.
There are some bugs that can persist in the soil (which is probably where they originated) for very long periods of time. Typhus has been around as a documented problem since the 16th century, and is likely the (or a) culprit in the pestilence that ravaged ancient Athens during the siege by Sparta. Decades ago I read of at least one case of typhus caught from an archaeological dig of a site buried for over 10,000 years, but in that case, who really knows if it wasn’t contracted in one of the normal ways.
Wonder if they found any mercury pills or skull chisels that conspiracy theorists of the time claimed were unhealthy.
Smallpox and plague can last indefinitely
Test 'em for Bud Light.
Those conspiracy theorists, so superstitious and paranoid. Pass the mercury, please.
Any face diapers in there?
They just couldn’t follow the science.
What could possibly go wrong?.........................
Great... Let’s open one up that has the plague in it!!
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