at all with ill people.
With our modern understanding of disease, we may look patronizingly on earlier practices of bloodletting or of locating latrines next to wells, but before the era of the germ theory, these seemed entirely reasonable in their respective societies. In fact, cultural understandings of what causes disease, whether physical or spiritual, underpin the rules for drinking water.
An eighteenth-century French illustration by Johann Lavater shows how these humors were expressed in physical features: phlegmatic in the upper left, then, moving clockwise, choleric, melancholy, and sanguine .
At the time of the Greeks and Romans, for example, physicians believed that the health of the body depended upon the balance of four humors: black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood. Each humor was linked to specific physical qualities. Blood was warm and moist, while black bile was cold and dry. Hence Bullein’s admonition that drinking cold water was evil. Its chill risked slowing the flow of humors and could cause melancholy. Indeed the name of one particularly virulent waterborne disease, cholera, comes from the term for yellow bile, “choler.” “Sanguine,” equally, came from the humor of blood (“sang” in French), and “phlegmatic” from the humor of phlegm. The task of the physician was to diagnose the illness and deduce the surplus or deficit of each humor causing the ailment. He could then nurse the patient back to proper balance and health. Thus the common practices of bleeding a person or using emetics were both intended to remove surplus humors.
This conception was eventually supplanted by the miasmatic theory of disease. This theory held that diseases were caused by breathing contaminated air. The general concept was that an airborne mist containing poisonous “miasma” served as the agent of disease and could often be identified by its foul odor. Hence the name for malaria, which means “bad air.” This theory explained how people could quickly infect one another without physical contact, as well as the awful stench surrounding diseased flesh. Although an inaccurate explanation, the miasma theory was effective. Its immediate policy implication—improved cleanliness—no doubt reduced the spread of pathogens.
A moment’s reflection makes clear the consequences of the miasmatic theory of disease for how people thought about drinking water. If the most threatening diseases—epidemics such as bubonic plague, cholera, and typhoid—were airborne, then drinking water was unlikely to be a serious cause of concern. This is not to say, of course, that people were ignorant of the link between drinking water and disease. People obviously could get sick from drinking certain types of water, but not from the most feared epidemics. The drinking water was safe enough, just not risk-free, to use modern parlance.
Source Protection
Once one has identified a reliable and safe source for drinking water, it is essential to protect the source from harms, both seen and unseen. Most obviously, and particularly in arid regions, one must protect against physical appropriation. Where water is scarce, clear property regimes emerge with effective sanctions. As described previously, despite the widespread norm of a Right of Thirst, outsiders still need to ask permission to drink from a well in southern Zimbabwe or a spring in central Australia.
The most common approach for source protection has been through rules restricting activities that may cause pollution. Biblical text from Deuteronomy, for example, requires that waste be disposed of far away from areas of human habitation. The Babylonian Talmud similarly forbade throwing waste into wells. Nor could tanneries,slaughterhouses, cemeteries, or furnaces operate within twenty-five meters of a well. Some of the earliest environmental laws and policies in England concerned source protection. Building owners were required to keep their street frontages clean. People
With our modern understanding of disease, we may look patronizingly on earlier practices of bloodletting or of locating latrines next to wells, but before the era of the germ theory, these seemed entirely reasonable in their respective societies. In fact, cultural understandings of what causes disease, whether physical or spiritual, underpin the rules for drinking water.
An eighteenth-century French illustration by Johann Lavater shows how these humors were expressed in physical features: phlegmatic in the upper left, then, moving clockwise, choleric, melancholy, and sanguine .
At the time of the Greeks and Romans, for example, physicians believed that the health of the body depended upon the balance of four humors: black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood. Each humor was linked to specific physical qualities. Blood was warm and moist, while black bile was cold and dry. Hence Bullein’s admonition that drinking cold water was evil. Its chill risked slowing the flow of humors and could cause melancholy. Indeed the name of one particularly virulent waterborne disease, cholera, comes from the term for yellow bile, “choler.” “Sanguine,” equally, came from the humor of blood (“sang” in French), and “phlegmatic” from the humor of phlegm. The task of the physician was to diagnose the illness and deduce the surplus or deficit of each humor causing the ailment. He could then nurse the patient back to proper balance and health. Thus the common practices of bleeding a person or using emetics were both intended to remove surplus humors.
This conception was eventually supplanted by the miasmatic theory of disease. This theory held that diseases were caused by breathing contaminated air. The general concept was that an airborne mist containing poisonous “miasma” served as the agent of disease and could often be identified by its foul odor. Hence the name for malaria, which means “bad air.” This theory explained how people could quickly infect one another without physical contact, as well as the awful stench surrounding diseased flesh. Although an inaccurate explanation, the miasma theory was effective. Its immediate policy implication—improved cleanliness—no doubt reduced the spread of pathogens.
A moment’s reflection makes clear the consequences of the miasmatic theory of disease for how people thought about drinking water. If the most threatening diseases—epidemics such as bubonic plague, cholera, and typhoid—were airborne, then drinking water was unlikely to be a serious cause of concern. This is not to say, of course, that people were ignorant of the link between drinking water and disease. People obviously could get sick from drinking certain types of water, but not from the most feared epidemics. The drinking water was safe enough, just not risk-free, to use modern parlance.
Source Protection
Once one has identified a reliable and safe source for drinking water, it is essential to protect the source from harms, both seen and unseen. Most obviously, and particularly in arid regions, one must protect against physical appropriation. Where water is scarce, clear property regimes emerge with effective sanctions. As described previously, despite the widespread norm of a Right of Thirst, outsiders still need to ask permission to drink from a well in southern Zimbabwe or a spring in central Australia.
The most common approach for source protection has been through rules restricting activities that may cause pollution. Biblical text from Deuteronomy, for example, requires that waste be disposed of far away from areas of human habitation. The Babylonian Talmud similarly forbade throwing waste into wells. Nor could tanneries,slaughterhouses, cemeteries, or furnaces operate within twenty-five meters of a well. Some of the earliest environmental laws and policies in England concerned source protection. Building owners were required to keep their street frontages clean. People
Similar Books
