St. Augustine

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This is a question for the medical community about traveling in ancient days. When Augustine moved from Carthage to Rome, he reports in his Confessions that "Rome welcomed me with the scourge of bodily illness." Would it have been common-- almost expected-- for travelers to get very sick in the 5th century? Without any clean drinking water ANYWHERE, would all travelers have to develop resistance to new bacteria wherever they went?

YES

Modern people are spoiled by sanitation. All bacteria was local, and most human waste went into the water supply from somewhere upstream. The Egyptians invented beer because they had to boil their water to make it safe to drink, and since they were boiling water anyway, why not make beer? The Greeks and Romans cultivated wines because germs cant live in alcohol. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.112.91.104 (talk) 22:06, 27 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Suggest merging most of the medical stuff here into traveller's sickness

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

The result was merge into Traveller's diarrhea. Jason Quinn (talk) 18:23, 3 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

...leaving at most the historical/lexicographical material, and a link. --Joe Decker 05:15, 29 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

Only if it improves the readability of Traveller's Sickness. That page is dry and boring. This one is very well written, as well as practical. -205.201.141.146 15:30, 28 March 2007 (UTC)Reply
Please do it. The relevant article is Traveler's diarrhea. --Una Smith (talk) 04:34, 3 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

I strongly vote to merge with traveler's diarrhea. Entire article should re-direct there. There will should be a new section in traveler's diarrhea that mentions colloquial terms for the diarrhea and a sentence or two specific to Mexican travel. Calling the traveler's diarrhea page "dry and boring" does not negate the fact that the two pages duplicate each other. After a grace period, if nobody has commented further I will make the changes myself. Jason Quinn (talk) 18:37, 13 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

Are there any further comments regarding this issue. We have another implied vote for merge by Valerius Tygart (talk) ("I entirely agree with merging TD with Montezuma's Revenge.") at the Traveler's diarrhea talk page. I will wait a week or so for further comment and if not, consider the case closed. Most of the material here is duplicated at Traveler's diarrhea. I will move the Mexico-specific info to TD but the easiest way to merge will be simply to make this page a redirect. Jason Quinn (talk) 01:42, 29 April 2008 (UTC)Reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

James Macey

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Who, exactly, is James Macey? The article never says who he is or why he is quoted. It also doesn't cite the source of the quotation. --Jbbarnes 07:02, 16 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

This article needs the following information

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History of the term "Montezuma's Revenge" (obvious as it may be)

Whether fertilizing crops with human waste / improper sewer sanitation has to do with this, or whether -our- germs are in -our- water as well, and we're just used to them.

Other instances of traveler's diarrhea mentioned briefly as similar phenomena. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.21.221 (talk) 18:47, 26 April 2008 (UTC)Reply