The “civilised Romans”, despite their baths and sewage system, have been assessed as no freer from disease than the barbarians they scorned (Lice, fleas and tapeworms: the horrible history of the Romans, 8 January). I wonder whether modern Britain would fare any better if judged by academics in a couple of thousand years. Will they find that our obsession with cleanliness, evidenced by myriad shampoos, cleansers and deodorants, left us prey to the fearful ravages of the ubiquitous trisclosan; that the sewage sludge which found its way on to agricultural land exposed us to the noxious effects of heavy metals; or that gender mutations caused by synthetic hormones had undreamt-of implications for our fertility? We shall never know.
Sally Knights
Bristol
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