Roman soldiers guarding Hadrian’s Wall in Britain were no strangers to diarrhea and abdominal pain, according to a new study that found traces of at least three different intestinal parasites in soil near centuries-old toilets.
This discovery shows that even though the walls had a state-of-the-art sewage system at the time, the Romans’ mettle suffered greatly.
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In a study published Friday (December 19) in the journal Parasitology, a team of researchers examined a new set of evidence at Vindolanda: soil preserved in the drains of the fort’s 3rd-century toilets.
Researchers collected 58 samples along toilet drains, which included animal bones, Roman beads and pottery. The soil samples were then micro-sieved to look for parasite eggs.
Researchers found roundworm (Ascaris sp.) and whipworm (Trichuris sp.) eggs in the toilet samples. Roundworms and whipworms are both microscopic parasites that live in the human intestines and often cause abdominal pain, fever, and diarrhea. These fecal-oral parasites are usually transmitted when a person ingests unclean food or dirt contaminated with parasite eggs.
In addition, the researchers detected duodenal Giardia, a parasite that also infects the small intestine and causes giardiasis, or Giardia infection, in one sample.
The presence of all three parasites suggests fecal contamination of Vindolanda’s water or food sources, the researchers said in their study. However, although whipworms and roundworms had been previously identified in Roman Britain, this is the first evidence of G. duodenalis.
Study co-author Piers Mitchell, a paleoparasitologist at the University of Cambridge, told Live Science in an email that “it remains unclear whether this parasite was present in Britain before Roman times” because “archaeological sites in Britain dating back to before the arrival of the Romans have not been systematically tested for Giardia infections.”
However, Giardia is an important clue to the health of people living on the outskirts of Rome.
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“Of the three parasites we found, Giardia is most likely to cause serious health problems,” Mitchell said. While short-term infections can cause diarrhea and dehydration, long-term side effects of Giardia infection include irritable bowel, eye damage, arthritis, allergies, and muscle pain.
Although Roman soldiers were not legally allowed to marry, countless archaeological evidence, including preserved children’s shoes, indicate that men, women, and children all lived at Vindolanda. And evidence of new parasites could point to serious health concerns for children of soldiers.
“While diarrhea can cause dehydration at any age, young children are most likely to die from diarrhea,” Mitchell says. “Chronic infections with Giardia, roundworms, and whipworms in children can all lead to stunted growth and reduced intelligence.”
Gastrointestinal problems caused by parasites appear to have been very common in most parts of the Roman Empire, the researchers note in the study, although the new analysis does not reveal exactly how many people suffered from these infections.
“We don’t know what percentage of the people in Vindolanda were infected with the parasite because the sewer drains contain the feces of everyone who used the toilets,” Mitchell said. However, considering data from previous studies, it is believed that “between 10 and 40 percent of people in Roman times were likely infected with intestinal parasites.”
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