History of Sanitation

 CILMHl.R Synopsis of Chapter. Early Sewage Disposal—Removal of Offensive Ma- terials from Temples of Jerusalem—Sewage System of a Pre-Babylonian City- Sewers of Rome—The Cloaca Maxima—The Dejecti Effusive Act. nullit um BEFORE describing the sewerage system of Rome, it might be interesting to glance backward at the efforts made prior to that time to dispose of excreta and household wastes. It is in Deuteronomy, one of the Books of Moses, that first mention is made of the disposal of excreta: “ 3 hou shalt have a place also without the camp, whither thou shalt go forth abroad. “And thou shalt have a paddle upon thy weapon; and it shall be when thou wilt ease thyself abroad, thou shalt dig therewith, and shall turn back and cover that which cometh from thee.” No doubt the object of Moses in promulgating that law was to preserve cleanliness about camp and to hide offen- sive matter from sight in the least odorous way. Neverthe- less no more sanitary method could have been adopted. Deposited as the soil was, in small quantities, just under- neath the surface of the ground it was soon reduced to harmless compounds by the teeming bacteria in the living earth. Recent explorations in Jerusalem have brought to light extensive drains for the removal from the vicinity of the temples of offensive matters peculiar to the bloody sac- rifices of that ancient people; and in an August, 1905, issue of the Scientific American, Edgar James Banks, field 29