Sanitation and the lessons from history

I would like all of you to consider the issue of sanitation in countries that you have visited that do NOT have all of the mod cons of a first world country.

When travelling to countries with these issues did you get the same lectures that I received from concerned relatives and well meaning friends and doctors all concerned for your health?

You know what I mean, advice about what to eat, where to eat it, how to take care when washing your hands, how to take care when using whatever form of ablution and toilet facilities you were likely to encounter?

If you did then you would begin to understand the fascination that I had with the facilities that you see me sitting on in the ruins of Ephesus - a town in what is modern day Turkey - but a town that has been host over the centuries to such visiting notables who settled at Ephesus as the apostle John and Mary, Jesus' mother.

The city's fame today, as a major tourist destination, with one of the most intact of all Roman cities of the time depends on the fame of the Library or the art works or some other feature that captures the imagination of visitors.

Not so for me - what captured my imagination was the incredibly clever use of the location of the city (as it was at the time and the huge engineering works that had actually taken water from nearby sources and used them via aqueducts to channel water to the city and through it to the sea.

The process provided both running water for drinking, washing and sanitary functions like the now open air privy that is pictured.

Just imagine how these lessons from history could have benefited all of those who seem to have forgotten how the Roman Empire - so many centuries ago actually managed to bring the equivalent of modern day plumbing, sanitation and central heating to communities that today do not seem to manage to emulate what they had achieved with all the modern technology at their beck and call.

Sometimes I think it would not hurt human beings to stop and consider the lessons that they could learn from their past before they berate governments for not bringing them a better life today.