History of Sanitation

HISTORY OF SANITATION 65 dispensed with on the march, and the result was that wherever the crusaders went they left sickness and pesti- lence in their wake. Pilgrimages to the holy shrines, which drew together thousands of human beings without adequate shelter or food, also served to spread contagious diseases throughout the land. Perhaps the best picture of a pilgrimage which, while of a latter date, will still serve to show the unsani- tary conditions when thousands of people are brought together without food or shelter, can be had from a report of Dr. Simmons, of the Yokahama Board of Health. In speaking of a latter-day pilgrimage in India, he says: “The drinking-water supply is derived from wells, so-called ‘tanks’ or artificial ponds and the water courses of the country. The wells generally resemble those of other parts of Asia. The tanks are excavations made for the pur- pose of collecting the surface water during the rainy season and storing it up for the dry. Necessarily they are mere stagnant pools. The water is used not only to quench thirst, but is said to be drunk as a sacred duty. At the same time, the reservoir serves as a large washing tub for clothes, no matter how dirty or in what soiled condition, and for per- sonal bathing. Many of the watercourses are Leaden Cup, of the time of Vespasian, found in Rome. TheJjand was decorated with colored glass sacred; notably the Ganges, a river 1,600 miles long, in whose waters it is the religious duty of millions, not only those living near its banks, but for pilgrims, to bathe and to cast their dead. The Hindoo cannot be made to use a