The Fall of Rome: Enviormental and Public Health Problems

Environmental and Public Health Problems
Written by Darius Mclaurin

It is said that there is many reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire. But here is one, environmental and public health problems was a contributing factor of the descent of the roman empire. You may be thinking that this has nothing to do with the fall of the roman empire but you are wrong. Environmental and public health problems was one of the top reasons voted by people of the fall of the Roman Empire. It caused problems in the empire because rich citizens in the empire used led for everything. They used lead in their cooking utensil, and even in the pipes that brought them their drinking water. Do to this they consumed to much lead and died from lead poisoning. Just like how they drank the water which was filled with lead substances. Also how they cooked with lead utensils and poisoned their own food. So that was just part of it there is many more to come. So we talked about lead poisoning but there was also the spread of variety of different diseases. the main diseases were "malaria (Plasmodium Falciparium, the most dangerous form), tuberculosis, typhoid fever, and certain digestive ailments like gastroenteritis". So these were diseases that were spread around the roman empire causing the death rate to rapidly increase. Another was during the battles in the Coliseum when a dead gladiator was out on the coliseum floor the diseases in their body and blood spread through the atmosphere causing others to have them to.This spread on and on to more people to be sick. Lastly those who could not fend for themselves and left on the street got plague and other diseases and died from some parts of exposure. So as you can see Environmental and public health was one of the factors of the fall of the Roman Empire.