September Issue AAG

FLEAS, LICE & BUGS SWARMED EUROPE
Unsanitary conditions, diseases and starvation personify medieval Europe
street on the heads of
carefree passers-by.
Stagnated slops made
stinking pools; and a
great number of town
pigs crowned the
whole picture. People
emptied chamber pots
right out of their
windows making
streets look like
cesspools. Bathrooms
were the rarest luxury.
Fleas, lice and bugs
swarmed in rich and
poor houses of
London and Paris.
Unsanitary conditions,
diseases and
leprosy and syphilis
starvation personify disfigured people
medieval Europe as it faces.
was. Even the noble
There were not any
class could not afford
cleaning agents or the
to eat their fill. Noble
notion of personal
families were happy if
hygiene in Europe up
at best two or three of
to the middle of the
ten children survived.
19th century. One
Delivery was quite an
Italian nobleman said
undertaking for
in his memoirs that in
women: a third part of
the 16th century it was
them died in labor.
impossible to walk
Street illumination also
along the streets that
was poor oil lamps,
resembled a fetid
splinters or wax
stream of turbid water.
candles at best.
He had to hold a
Hunger, smallpox,
scented handkerchief
- - -
or a small bouquet to
his nose not to vomit.
But not only faeces
poisoned the air.
Butchers slaughtered
and disembowel cattle
right in the streets.
They would scatter
guts around and pour
blood out onto the
pavement.
In late Middle Ages
people learned to
process wastes and
feces. Urine, for
example, was used to
tan leather and bleach
cloth, animals bones to
produce flour. In days
sanitary function, rain
of old painters placed
was considered a
barrels for urine near
providential
the farms, they used it
punishment. Rains
to knead paints. In
washed dirt out of all
Ancient Rome they
cracks, and raging
sold even the urine
sewage streams
from latrines to wool
rushed through the
dyers and leather
streets. Just like this
tanners. What could
there appeared a small
not be processed was
river Merderon in
left in the street.
France (from French
Rain was the only
merde ? shit).
street cleaner in those
If there were stinking
in narrow side streets
revolution aqueducts
times. And still,
funds in the country, in
and yards. Only after
and gutters appeared;
notwithstanding its
cities people defecated
the hydraulic
they provided houses