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Explanation: The European colonial empires of the 19th century often justified their behavior by pointing to the 'uncivilized' nature of the nations they butchered and conquered. However, Europe in the 19th century was... not exactly well-developed on the homefront. Sewage systems, in particular, were a ghastly-late introduction, even in the most advanced towns of Europe.
Almost like the main advantage of European 'civilization' was the gun and the state's ability to marshal the people who use it, not a higher standard of behavior or human development...
Which is funny because sewer systems pre-dated the European colonial empire by a few hundred years, in Europe
No surprise, Atlantic Europe was a backwater until the discovery of the Americas.
True, but "tossing your excrement out the window" has always been a no-no.
Solids go to the night-soil man for fertilizer. Liquids go in the barrel on the corner for tanning or laundry. There were some rudimentary sewer systems; they were just sorely underengineered.
Another big dung-related problem that urban areas had was all the horse manure. The amount of horse manure that had to be collected and moved and sequestered every day was enormous, and the streets were muddy in no small part from urine.
True, but “tossing your excrement out the window” has always been a no-no.
Sometimes frowned upon, but extremely common practice anyway. Without robust and accessible sewer systems, it's just what happens in urban environments.
Most certainly not in the 1800s.
Woodcut from 1489.
Most certainly not in the 1800s.
There are regions without sewerage who still do that shit (ha) today. As late as the 1940s it was noted that some lower-class Londoners were in the habit of defecating in the corners of rooms.
I don't think a single woodcut depicting it can really be generalized for a wider or comnon practises.
Haworth , the village the Brontës lived in, is another ghastly example. The conditions where so unsanitary that in 1850 the average life expectancy was 25.8 years and more than 40% died before the age of 6.
Except for Charlotte Brontë who made it to 38, all the Brontë children died by 31. And they probably didn't even drink the water contaminated by runoff from the graveyard, as they had their own water source.
Another fun fact for the history nerds: B. Herschel Babbage, the guy who investigated the conditions on the invitation of the Brontë sisters' father, was the son of mathematician Charles Babbage, the inventor of the Analytical Engine.
Average life expectancy (as pretty much any average) is a very misleading measurement, though, because it is highly skewed towards the low end due to extremely high infant mortality.
I guess it comes down to what you take it to mean. If I read a low average life expectancy, my default assumption is that many people die very young. And I even added the statistics about high infant mortality, so it should be pretty clear that that's where it comes from?