Laudator Temporis Acti

Harold Farnsworth Gray (1885-1963), "Sewerage in Ancient and Mediaeval Times," Sewage Works Journal 12.5 (September, 1940) 939-946 (at 939):

We frequently hear people speak of "modern sanitation" as if it were something rather recently developed, and there appears to be a prevalent idea that municipal sewerage is a very modern thing that began some time about the middle of the last century. Perhaps these ideas do something to bolster up a somewhat wobbly pride in modern civilization (concerning the inherent values of which some have their doubts), but when examined in the light of history these ideas are seen to be far from new or even recent. Indeed, in the light of history it is a matter of astonishment, if not chagrin, that man in this respect has progressed so very little, if at all, in some four thousand years.

Id. (at 940, date added by me):

Practically every house in Mohenjo-daro [ca. 2500 B.C.] had its bathroom, always placed on the street side of the building for the convenient disposal of waste water into the street drains. Where latrines have been found in the houses, they were placed on the street wall for the same reason. Ablution places were set immediately adjacent to the latrines, thus con forming to one of the most modern of sanitary maxims. Where baths and latrines were located on the upper floor, they were drained usually by vertical terra-cotta pipes with closely fitting spigot joints, set in the building wall.

These ancient terra-cotta pipes, still sound after nearly five thousand years, are the precursor of our modern vitrified clay spigot-and-socket sewer pipe, and are an excellent guarantee of the durability of this material.

Id. (at 942):

Particularly in the Middle Minoan Period, dated about 1900-1700 B.C., elaborate systems of well-built stone drains were constructed, which carried sewage, roof water and general drainage. The main drain transported these wastes a considerable distance beyond the palace, but we do not know the method of their final disposal.

Each quarter or section of the palace had its own subsidiary drain age system connected to the main drain. These systems had vertical shafts of ample size which acted both as roof drains and as ventilation ducts, the latter in much the same manner as do the soil stacks in our modern houses. The frequent and torrential rains in Crete would result in excellent flushing of the entire drainage system.

Such sanitary arrangements were not particular to the palace at Knossus, but seem to have been an essential part of all Cretan building. A. Mosso, in describing the ruins of the villa of Hagia Triada, makes the following statement :

One day, after a heavy downpour of rain, I was interested to find that all the drains acted perfectly, and I saw the water flow from sewers through which a man could walk upright. I doubt if there is any other instance of a drainage system acting after 4,000 years.

Perhaps we also may be permitted to doubt whether our modern sewerage systems will still be functioning after even one thousand years.

Id. (at 945-946):

The Englishmen of the last century finally did succeed in divorcing themselves from immediate juxtaposition with their own excrement and the stench thereof, thereby at long last catching up in part with the Minoans of nearly 4000 years previously, but they for a while merely exchanged one problem for another. As early as 1842 the Poor Law Commissioners advised against the discharge of sewage direct into streams which were used for water supply. London, of course, had simply removed its excrement from accumulation of reeking filth in and about the houses, and transferred the entire mess into the Thames River, within the city limits. Nothing was done about it until 1855, when at the end of a disastrous epidemic of Asiatic cholera (that great blessing of man because it has literally terrified him out of his sanitary apathy and into sanitary improvements), the Nuisance Removal Act was passed, prohibiting gross river pollution. But, in spite of the cholera, for quite a while the interference of gross pollution with the industrial and agricultural uses of water was given more attention than the menace to health. In passing it might be mentioned that London was still to suffer two more great epidemics of cholera, in 1866 and again in 1872, showing how slow human progress was even in the face of the most urgent compulsion.

London, of course, reaped the reward of its bungling attempts to clean up the city by dumping sewage into the river. The years of 1858-59 were the years of the great stink in London. This was vividly described by Dr. William Budd as follows :

For the first time in the history of man, the sewage of nearly three millions of people had been brought to seethe and ferment under a burning sun, in one vast open cloaca lying in their midst. The result we all know. Stench so foul, we may well believe, had never before ascended to pollute this lower air. Never before, at least, had a stink risen to the height of an historic event. Even ancient fable failed to furnish figures adequate to convey a conception of its thrice Augean foulness. For many weeks, the atmosphere of Parliamentary Committee-rooms was only rendered barely tolerable by the suspension before every window, of blinds saturated with chloride of lime, and by the lavish use of this and other disinfectants. More than once, in spite of similar precautions, the law courts were suddenly broken up by an insupportable invasion of the noxious vapor. The river steamers lost their accustomed traffic, and travellers, pressed for time, often made a circuit of many miles rather than cross one of the city bridges.

For months together, the topic almost monopolized the public prints. Day after day, week after week, the "Times" teemed with letters, filled with complaint, prophetic of calamity, or suggesting remedies. Here and there, a more than commonly passionate appeal showed how intensely the evil was felt by those who were condemned to dwell on the Stygian banks. At home and abroad, the state of the chief river was felt to be a national reproach. "India is in revolt, and the Thames stinks," were the two great facts coupled together by a distinguished foreign writer, to mark the climax of a national humiliation.

And this nearly four thousand years after the prehistoric Cretans! How we did progress!