Pre-germ-theory food handling and water source management always took a toll, so I’m guessing poo sponges were a relatively small part of the problem. Especially if the vinegar soak actually worked at all.
He also reviewed studies analyzing Rome’s ectoparasites — that is, parasites found on the outside of the body, such as fleas, lice and bedbugs — in textiles and combs.
Surprisingly, ectoparasites were just as common in the Roman Empire, where people regularly bathed, as they were in Viking and medieval populations — groups of people who didn’t bathe frequently, Mitchell found.
Now that is surprising. How hard is it to just delouse your shit before you put it back on?
Where possible the army arranged for the men to have baths in huge vats of hot water while their clothes were being put through delousing machines. Unfortunately, this rarely worked. A fair proportion of the eggs remained in the clothes and within two or three hours of the clothes being put on again a man’s body heat had hatched them out.
So how did that machine work? My search turned up a lot of stuff about it being a problem in the great wars, but urban Rome is a very a different beast, with much less science and much more leisure time and stability.
My first instinct is boiling water. The Romans would definitely have tried that, and few things can survive it, but I’d also guess their textiles wouldn’t have survived well. My next thought is smoke, which I guess they could have just missed, but then again maybe the pests are resistant to it. The eggs at least wouldn’t need to actively respire much. Salt maybe? Tiny things don’t generally deal well with the wrong salt concentrations.
In Auschwitz they used the same cyanide gas tablets as were used on the “prisoners”, but in much greater concentrations, which has become a source of supposed gotchas for denialists.
My search turned up a lot of stuff about it being a problem in the great wars, but urban Rome is a very a different beast, with much less science and much more leisure time and stability.
Not so sure about much more leisure time. Working class Romans would have been working sunup to sundown, while soldiers always have to fight long stretches of boredom, even in the chaos of the trenches.
My first instinct is boiling water. The Romans would definitely have tried that, and few things can survive it, but I’d also guess their textiles wouldn’t have survived well. My next thought is smoke, which I guess they could have just missed, but then again maybe they’re resistant to it. The eggs at least wouldn’t need to actively respire much. Salt maybe? Tiny things don’t generally deal well with the wrong salt concentrations.
Nit combs and oil rubs were the usual treatments. The oil can asphyxiate the bastards so you can catch them, but most’ll start breathing again after a while, so you still have to remove and dispose of them manually.
Did most (urban, non-deployed) Romans have time to go to the baths, at least? I kind of figured it was universal, albeit with some kind of internal segregation like the Colosseum, but I’m realising I don’t actually know that.
The baths, sure, but bathing won’t kill lice. They can go without air for up to 10 hours. Tenacious things.
Romans would generally go to the baths daily or every other day (depending on the city/time period). Some baths were free to the public (or had hours/days that were free to the public), while others were admission by fee or connections only. I don’t think there was any segregation - no class segregation at least; gender segregation, sometimes. It varied. Often men and women would bathe together; some cities the baths would have separate rooms for men and women; and other times the baths would set aside different hours for men and women to bathe.
EDIT: Just to clarify what I meant about leisure time and ancient Rome - I don’t mean to imply working-class urban Romans had NO leisure time on a daily basis, only that comparing them to WW1 soldiers, with the mixture of military scheduling and long stretches of boredom vs. a long work day, there’s probably a broad similarity in how much ‘sit down and hunt lice’ leisure time they had.
https://www.livescience.com/53303-ancient-rome-infested-with-parasites.html
It was pretty bad.
Pre-germ-theory food handling and water source management always took a toll, so I’m guessing poo sponges were a relatively small part of the problem. Especially if the vinegar soak actually worked at all.
Now that is surprising. How hard is it to just delouse your shit before you put it back on?
Surprisingly hard. Delousing was a major endeavor all the way up into the 20th century. The little bastards are hard to completely eradicate.
I did some searching, but turned up kind of empty. Do you have something you could link on this?
Sure thing! This is about WW1 in particular, but it gives an idea of how hard the little bastards are to fight.
https://spartacus-educational.com/FWWlice.htm
So how did that machine work? My search turned up a lot of stuff about it being a problem in the great wars, but urban Rome is a very a different beast, with much less science and much more leisure time and stability.
My first instinct is boiling water. The Romans would definitely have tried that, and few things can survive it, but I’d also guess their textiles wouldn’t have survived well. My next thought is smoke, which I guess they could have just missed, but then again maybe the pests are resistant to it. The eggs at least wouldn’t need to actively respire much. Salt maybe? Tiny things don’t generally deal well with the wrong salt concentrations.
In Auschwitz they used the same cyanide gas tablets as were used on the “prisoners”, but in much greater concentrations, which has become a source of supposed gotchas for denialists.
Delousing machines in the Great War were usually steam machines.
https://rnzaoc.com/2017/03/14/mobile-laundry-and-bath-equipment-1941-1990s/
Not so sure about much more leisure time. Working class Romans would have been working sunup to sundown, while soldiers always have to fight long stretches of boredom, even in the chaos of the trenches.
Nit combs and oil rubs were the usual treatments. The oil can asphyxiate the bastards so you can catch them, but most’ll start breathing again after a while, so you still have to remove and dispose of them manually.
Did most (urban, non-deployed) Romans have time to go to the baths, at least? I kind of figured it was universal, albeit with some kind of internal segregation like the Colosseum, but I’m realising I don’t actually know that.
The baths, sure, but bathing won’t kill lice. They can go without air for up to 10 hours. Tenacious things.
Romans would generally go to the baths daily or every other day (depending on the city/time period). Some baths were free to the public (or had hours/days that were free to the public), while others were admission by fee or connections only. I don’t think there was any segregation - no class segregation at least; gender segregation, sometimes. It varied. Often men and women would bathe together; some cities the baths would have separate rooms for men and women; and other times the baths would set aside different hours for men and women to bathe.
EDIT: Just to clarify what I meant about leisure time and ancient Rome - I don’t mean to imply working-class urban Romans had NO leisure time on a daily basis, only that comparing them to WW1 soldiers, with the mixture of military scheduling and long stretches of boredom vs. a long work day, there’s probably a broad similarity in how much ‘sit down and hunt lice’ leisure time they had.