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indicate that diseases of the lungs were widespread in the classical civilisations of
the Mediterranean basin. However, deaths from
diseases like bronchitis
have to date attracted little sustained attention from medical historians of the
classical period. 2 In the developing world, where heating and cooking with smoky
biomass fuels such as wood and animal dung remains commonplace, in 2013
around 2 million deaths were linked to indoor air pollution. 3
Outdoor air pollution only became a major issue with the rise of cities. Early
cities were very different in many respects from their modern counterparts. They
were, for example, compact
'
normal
'
, with the marketplace, religious and
public buildings all being easily accessible on foot. The in
'
walking cities
'
uential Hippocratic
treatise Airs, Waters, Places, written c.400 BCE, stressed the importance of good
air quality, as well as pure water and a salubrious setting, in choosing settlement
sites. But where large numbers of people crowded into urban centres, smoke and
other noxious fumes from households and small manufacturing works soon became
a cause for concern. Air pollution was an everyday part of life for the inhabitants of
cities like Athens (population c.200,000 in 430 BCE) and Rome (population c.1
million in 150CE), where the emissions from homes, smelting furnaces, potteries
and other preindustrial workshops darkened the skies. 4
The residents of ancient Rome referred to their city
'
s smoke cloud as gravioris
'
'
'
'
caeli (
), and several complaints
about its effects can be found in classical writings. 5 The poet Horace (65 BCE - 8
CE), for instance, lamented the blackening of Rome
heavy heaven
) and infamis aer (
infamous air
'
s marble buildings by count-
less wood-burning
res, while the statesman and philosopher Seneca (4 BCE
65
-
CE) wrote in a letter to a friend:
I expect you ' re keen to hear what effect it had on my health, this decision of mine to leave
[Rome]. No sooner had I left behind the oppressive atmosphere of the city and that reek of
smoking cookers which pour out, along with clouds of ashes, all the poisonous fumes
they ' ve accumulated in their interiors whenever they ' re started up, than I noticed the
change in my condition at once. You can imagine how much stronger I felt after reaching
my vineyards. 6
Some 2,000 years ago civil claims over smoke pollution were heard before
Roman courts, and in 535CE the emperor Justinian promulgated the Institutes
which included a section that acknowledged the importance of clean air to breathe
(and pure water to drink) as a birthright:
'
By the law of nature these things are
common to mankind
. Earlier Babylonian and
Assyrian laws dealt with similar issues, and around 200CE the Hebrew Mishnah
sought to control sources of air pollution in Jerusalem. 7 Atmospheric pollution in
the air, running water, [and] the sea
'
2
Shaw ( 1996 ), Sallares ( 1991 ) and Schiedel ( 2001 ).
3 World Health Organisation ( 2013 ).
4 Hughes ( 1996 ) and Mosley ( 2010 ).
5 Hughes ( 1996 ).
6 Colbeck ( 2007 ) p. 375.
7 Brimblecombe ( 2008 ), Colbeck ( 2007 ) and Mamane ( 1987 ).
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