Public health in Ancient Rome

Very informative posting. Thanks

 

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You may have picked up Hepatitis A which I picked up in Italy many, many years ago. It is spread by poor sanitation. One feels very bad for quite sometime with that but once acquired and survived (most people do) one is supposed to have immunity from this form of hepatitis. I later found out that this illness is endemic to the Mediterranean, that most residents got it as children and either survived (most did) or not but that for adults the illness was not a problem because of this early exposure. Perhaps some readers from that region could tell us if this is true and whether it is still a problem in that area today.

 

Public executions served multiple purposes - in a time without the sorts of pastimes and entertainments we take for granted, public meting-out of 'justice" was a serious form of entertainment for the masses. Typically a day of games at the colosseum would begin in the morning with the execution of criminals or run-away slaves, although more ad-hoc floggings and beheadings might be carried out in any public square or space.
They also served the purpose of "high-concept demonstration" - crucifixion was particularly reserved for the highly visible and lengthy agonies of the subject, usually prisoners or slaves (full Roman Citizens were exempt from crucifixion, typically a death sentence was carried out in the form of flogging and beheading) and so the natural location of the crucifixion grounds was right outside the city gates where the victims' agonies could be observed by all coming and going about their business.

 

I like this thread very much ; thank you . 'Salute!'

 

Its interesting because to them it was normal to almost celebrate death in a sense, but in our modern western world at least me in the US, even the death penalty is frowned upon and being called unfair or cruel.

It was very common to witness people dying, for whatever reason be it execution, brawling or disease etc. Now witnessing somebody dying impacts us in ways that are hard to describe. Often leaving a lot of people with ptsd, or other psychological issues.

 

Hmmm... Ancients did not have graphic war and violence TV and movies that our masses "enjoy" everyday. Same with all the video games. We may abhor it in "real-life", but we expose ourselves to perhaps more violence and graphics through our entertainment media...

 

My thoughts exactly

 

I agree with you @Alegandron - whose society is actually more violent? I'll bet the ancients would think locking up a couple of million people for various offenses as horrific and probably a waste of state resources.

 

@Magnus Maximus interesting post - here's a coin that links to a bout of plague.

This quinarius depicts Aesculapius as a serpent entwined around a garlanded altar.

L. Rubrius Dossenus, AR Quinarius 87 BC
Obv: DOS – SEN laureate head of Neptune right; behind, trident.
Rev: L. RVBRI Victory advancing right, holding wreath and palm branch; before her, garlanded altar with serpent coiled around top
Size: 1.86g 12.5mm
Ref: Crawford 348/4, Babelon Rubria 4, Sydenham 708

There is no ambiguity about the snake and garlanded altar as a reference to Aesculapius, and it is likely that it is related to a plague that struck as the forces of Marius battled with Rome in 87 BC during the Social War. There is debate about the extent of this plague and whether it was isolated to the military camps or spread more broadly in the civilian population (more here).

 

What people of the mid 20th Century did to each other, what Stalin and Hitler and Mao and Pol Pot inflicted on their opponents makes Marius and Sulla, Caesar and Mark Antony, Caligula and Nero look a lot like, well, us.

 

Here is an interesting marble plaque probably from a columbarium illustrting in very concrete terms the infant mortality...

C(AIUS) TAFLENIUS C(AII) F(ILIUS) V(IXIT) MENS(ES) VII

"Gaius Taflenius , son of Gaius, lived for seven months".

 

Wow......
It’s crazy to think that that if that child were born today in Italy he could expect to live into his 80’s.
There should be statues erected to the men and women who created our modern world of public health.

 

Indeed there should. If I might relate something from my teaching days. At the start of the school year I would introduce my students to the study of history, often their first experience in history as a discipline. I would ask for a show of hands if they recognized as important historical figures a list of famous people I rattled off. Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Nero, Atilla the Hun, Richard the Lion Heart, Genghis Khan, Joan of Arc, Hernando Cortez, Pizzaro, George Washington, Napoleon Bonaparte, Dwight Eisenhower. Almost always every hand went up. Then I asked the same from a second list. Hippocrates of Cos, Aesculapius, Galen, Avicenna, Averroes, Paracelsus, William Harvey, Edward Jenner, Joseph Morton, Florence Nightingale, Clara Barton, Joseph Lister, Koch, Fleming, and Salk. With the exception of Jonas Salk whom some recognized, it was brachial paralysis. The point I wanted to make at that time, and here, was that history makes a great deal of figures who made great use of lethal violence to achieve their goals. More bluntly, they killed a lot of people in achieving historical immortality. The second list was, of course, those whose achievements in the field of medical science saved many, many lives. Not quite the fame of those who achieved their greatness through lethal violence. It is a shame that we do not more honor our greatest healers in statuary, coinage, movies and literature but I suppose that says a great deal about what history is (the list of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind, according to Jacob Burkhart) but also a great deal about us as well, as we prefer biographies of those in the first list to those in the second. As for the ancient numismatics of this, for every image of Asklepios, or Hygeia, or Salus from the Classical world there are twenty of Ares or Mars. Such is human nature.

 

Good points. When I am talking to anyone about history, it's not the individuals (i.e., Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, etc.) that I recall so much as the historical markers left to us by conflict. I recall the dates of wars/conflict, which in turn triggers my memories of what historical figures were involved. But to be honest, I know next to nothing about the individuals in the history of medical science.

 

To a great extent that is because your school textbooks and your teachers neglected the teaching of the importance of medicine and public health when you were in school. When schools teach that Walter Reed and William Gorgas were as important as Teddy Roosevelt in constructing the Panama Canal we can start to rectify that lacuna.

 

Psalms 90:10 gives 70-80 years if healthy. Our current averages are deceptive because we include in that number those who die early. Many of us know of an event in our lives that would have killed us even 100 years ago. I suppose we will all die of old age unless something else gets us first.

 

Death and taxes - the old dependables.