Sanitation, Latrines and Intestinal Parasites in Past PopulationsSanitation and intestinal health is something we often take for granted today. However, people living in many regions of the developing world still suffer with debilitating diseases due to the lack of sanitation. Despite its clear impact upon health in modern times, sanitation in past populations is a topic that has received surprisingly little attention. This book brings together key experts from around the world to explore fascinating aspects of life in the past relevant to sanitation, and how that affected our ancestors. By its end readers will realize that toilets were in use in ancient Mesopotamia even before the invention of writing, and that flushing toilets with anatomic seats were a technology of ancient Greece at the time of the minotaur myth. They will see how sanitation compared in ancient Rome and medieval London, and will take a virtual walk around the sanitation of York at the time of the Vikings. Readers will also understand which intestinal parasites infected humans in different regions of the world over different time periods, what these parasites tell us about early human evolution, later population migrations, past diet, lifestyle, and the effects of sanitation technology. There is good evidence that over the millennia people in the past realized that sanitation mattered. They invented toilets, cleaner water supplies, drains, waste disposal and sanitation legislation. While past views on sanitation were very different to those of today, it is clear than many past societies took sanitation much more seriously than was previously thought. |
Contents
1 | |
5 | |
3 Waste Management in Early Urban Southern Mesopotamia | 19 |
4 Latrines and Wastewater Sanitation Technologies in Ancient Greece | 41 |
The Efficacy of Ancient and Medieval Sanitation Methods | 69 |
A Survey of the Evidence for 2000 Years of Waste Disposal in York UK | 99 |
7 Human Intestinal Parasites and Dysentery in Africa and the Middle East Prior to 1500 | 121 |
8 Parasitism Cesspits and Sanitation in East Asian Countries Prior to Modernisation | 149 |
9 New World Paleoparasitology | 165 |
10 Parasites in European Populations from Prehistory to the Industrial Revolution | 203 |
11 A First Attempt to Retrace the History of Dysentery Caused by Entamoeba histolytica | 219 |
12 A Better Understanding of Sanitation and Health in the Past | 229 |
Bibliography | 235 |
277 | |
Other editions - View all
Sanitation, Latrines and Intestinal Parasites in Past Populations Piers D. Mitchell Limited preview - 2015 |
Sanitation, Latrines and Intestinal Parasites in Past Populations Dr Piers Mitchell Limited preview - 2015 |
Sanitation, Latrines and Intestinal Parasites in Past Populations Piers D. Mitchell Limited preview - 2016 |
Common terms and phrases
3rd millennium BC Africa America analysis ancient parasite Angelakis Anglo-Scandinavian animals Anthropology Araújo Archaeological Science archaeological sites areas Argentina Ascaris lumbricoides Bailly Bouchet Brazil Cave century cesspits Confalonieri contaminated coprolites Cruz 98 Suppl cultural deposits diarrhoea Diphyllobothrium drains dumping ELISA Entamoeba histolytica Enterobius vermicularis Europe evidence excavations faecal faeces Ferreira fish tapeworm flushing Fugassa Gonçalves Hall Harter helminth hookworm human coprolites human waste hygiene identified Instituto Oswaldo Cruz intestinal parasites Journal of Archaeological Journal of Parasitology Kenward latrines medieval London Memórias do Instituto Mesopotamia Middle East migration millennium BC Minoan Mitchell mummies Neolithic open sewers Oswaldo Cruz 98 palace paleoparasitological Paleopathology parasite eggs parasite species parasitic environment parasitic infections Parasitology past populations period pinworm pit fills Plasmodium falciparum prehistoric public lavatories region Reinhard Roman Rome roundworm samples Schistosoma Schistosoma haematobium sediments sewerage Shin streets studies toilets Trichuris trichiura urban whipworm worm