That water cursed: the origins of diseases in the Middle Ages
In a world completely dominated by Nature and its harsh and cruel laws, where the strongest controls and suppresses the weaker, in any case where the hierarchy does not allow any kind of insubordination and each Sgarro is punished more often as a preventive measure than educational purposes, the people of the Middle Ages was waiting with fear and anxiety following the scourge that is would cut down on her, a bit 'forward, a little' with terror, a little 'with curiosity, as well as the work differently and small scourges of everyday life, was only to be bored so why not be curious to know What was missing in these poor people, to turn a morbid form of collective depression into something even worse?
times of peace were beautiful and were rare, but maybe by then a week of peace was already too much that war was necessary, was a kind of pastime, there was always an enemy (real or imagined) to attack, rob, ridicule, delete, and if still not enough you would be persecuted for his future generations, or even in the afterlife. When the flagella were too many people were tired and wanted less and when there were few, people were eager to have one more. If people are looking through a kind of sadomasochism in the pursuit of holiness or just die of boredom that plagues most is unknown, one thing is certain: in this hit and run scourges of people continued to run the rhythm of the wheel of life, continued to follow the great river that leads from birth to death, he continued to drink dirty water, wine and mead or cirrhosis and die of cholera or continues to suffer from the curse of the water.
it was known that water was polluted, it was cursed, but the thirst was often so much that surpassed anything even the fear of dying from drinking from a fountain. The people of the Middle Ages was not stupid, even though he was ignorant and even though he knew nothing of Microbiology know what to polluted sources, and what caused the deaths of hundreds of people. We must also say that the pollution of the water was a possible tactic to bring down a place that you wanted to submit and resisted, it was sufficient to use the water as sewage, feces as a means to exploit the contaminant. In the Middle Ages it was rare for a city or a rural settlement arose from a distant source of water because it was needed for agriculture and livestock and fisheries, which is why it was essential and the absence of disease or health confirmed the contamination any water. The water was therefore not only essential to life but also for the war. In the absence of methods of disposing of organic waste and as a result of decay and abandonment of the Roman sewers to wonder, where did all their needs and especially how they disposed of? In some early medieval castles è ancora possibile vedere delle forme di latrina, buchi grossi in un muro freddo e questo buco doveva essere una sorta di pozzetto lungo diversi metri che si collegava o con una specie di falda interna e chiusa, artificiale e usata come fossa biologica o in un letamaio; in altri castelli ancora, del Basso Medioevo però, è invece possibile vedere che questo buco finiva col pavimento e il tutto era probabilmente raccolto in una specie di catinella che veniva poi portata nel letamaio o gettata in una sorta di fossa biologica dai servi addetti a tale umiliante servizio. Se consideriamo che in ogni dove e in ogni tempo la popolazione era costituita per il 90% dal popolino timoroso, ignorante e depresso, questo sistema di eliminazione delle feci e delle urine sembra too good a service, if it works, that few could afford in those days. The farmer went where? As the people were disposed of at the organic waste such as feces and urine? They were taken each time a sort of collective septic tank or in a collective dung heap in the open, since the feces and urine stink and nobody wanted to smell and diseases here the river and since then the water was contaminated, but not only for that portion where the river passed, but the successive sections, so the pollution of the mountain led to infection across the valley and so on, so the outbreak of epidemics was often a cause for war, not just half to win or force the outcome. Naively People had to think that yes, the water was now polluted, but the river that carried so much water would be cleaned out at sea, the water came from that source was reliable. But not all the rivers reach the sea and those who come, it was thought, would not only cleaned up at sea, but rather, the sea would take away the germs away pollutants and droppings. Unfortunately for these people to cheat so convinced by its very nature, the seeds were counted from sea mollusks, which were eaten, often raw (with risk of disease far worse than cholera) from fishermen who contracted the disease and their faeces were discarded, and so on. Fortunately, the rivers do not flow from sea \u200b\u200bto source otherwise who knows what might happen beyond what already happened: dead, dead and still dead.
If the system described above had really worked, did not have holes and the water from which they drew water in domestic wells for drinking had been separated from that used as a septic tank, one might say that the gentlemen were once in a sense protected from all these plagues, but it was not because they were subject to the same risk of the people considering that raw shellfish in the Middle Ages was considered a delicious food despite being cursed as the water that was contaminated.
It was not, however, just as had contracted the disease, but also the intake of contaminated food allegedly taken because it depended on the ingested dose of pathogenic microorganisms. In the case of cholera, only 20% of infected persons manifest the disease, but cholera is not the only, including typhoid, salmonella and shigella, hepatitis, other diseases are transmitted through contaminated water, particularly through the consumption of contaminated shellfish and much more raw. Under this one can easily deduce that as the population residing near the sea areas were aware of such diseases but unfortunately at that time were not known antibiotics and antivirals to combat these diseases, and people continued to die for but no known cause, for one reason or another wanted to address and combat.
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