Richard II was the king responsible for the first ‘urban sanitary act’ in 1388. Before this the cities and towns were responsible for their own hygiene, now there was a centrally legislated act to force them into line. The first English Sanitary Act dealt with offal and slaughter houses; prohibited the casting of animal filth and…
Royal order forbidding slaughtering of animals in London and suburbs.
In France, in 1350, King John II established the first Sanitary Police and this has been considered the commencement of sanitary reform. The ordinance provided that hogs should not be kept in the cities; that streets should be cleansed, and the offal removed; that butchers should not sell meat more than two days old in…
Venice took the lead in measures to check the spread of plague, having appointed three guardians of public health in the first years of the Black Death. Sicily is the first part of Europe to be infected with bubonic plaque. The disease is there by October 1347. The international ports of Genoa and Venice see the…