Morbus gallicus

The Roman Empire is often thought of as one of the great civilizations and empires of all time. The prevalence of disease in Rome's history is often overlooked. As said by Roman Physician Galen, "This populous city, where daily ten thousand people can be discovered suffering from jaundice, and ten thousand from dropsy." While there are few documents remaining from the time period documenting demographics and other factors in disease, bone studies help to indicate various diseases, and speculations can be made on why the diseases we know existed were rampant through the empire.

Hygiene in ancient Rome was not ideal for combatting diseases. Their sewer system, praised for its longevity, had many flaws. As Water History’s Roger Hanson explains, street drainage and sewage flowed through the same pipes, which led to sewage openings on the streets. Also, since most sewer systems were privately owned, they were also privately maintained and in turn neglected. Instead, citizens would turn to their latrines; if they lived on anything but the ground floor they would even throw their excrement onto the street. This led to exposure of sewage to flies, dogs, and bacteria, all of which helped spread disease among Romans.

The high poverty rate in Rome led to a need for public baths, or thermae since it was uncommon for the middle class citizens to own one of their own according to journalist Jay Stuller. When the heated bath water was not chemically cleansed or filtered with chemicals such as chlorine, bacteria thrived and spread. When Christianity came to Rome, it saw the public nudity of the bathing system and saw it as debauchery and therefore frowned upon. While the bathing system may not have been pristine, abstaining from cleanliness altogether brought upon many more potentially fatal diseases, especially in infants. This trend started and ended in Rome. As the necessity for bathing became recognized, the protests of the Christian church died down and a new elaborate bathing system was designed under the rule of Emperor Augustus. Even an imperial-version sauna was created for cleansing the body of toxins.

In contrast to today's diet, Romans ate little meat. According to scholar Linda Gigante, they consumed large amounts of grain, fruits, and some vegetables. Similar to the diet encouraged by modern United States' food stamps, the poor were given monthly supplies of grain and hardly had money to pay for anything else. Due to this, many Romans suffered from malnutrition and multiple vitamin deficiencies. Even those who had money for food didn’t always have the best choices. There was no food and drug regulatory agency in ancient times, so low food standards brought contamination and parasites. Also apparent is the water quality. The Roman Army’s drinking from the contaminated Tiber River contributed to their vulnerability to many diseases.

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