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Summary History of Biology - Lecture 8
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History of Biology - Lecture 8
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History of Biology – Lecture 8: Environment, nature and ecology28-03-18
When did the environmental problem begin?
Anachronism = using a word that we use now that people understood differently in
the past.
Environmental problems are probably as old as civilization;
e.g. deforestation in Sumerian Empire erosion, floods, degradation of farmland +
maintenance troubled by war decline from about 1000BC.
Dutch nature has long been an environment profoundly managed by people!
profoundly human.
Ecological or environmental history:
History of the development of the relationship between humanity and environment. A
new field of research, since 1990s.
History of ecology or of environmental science:
Emphasis on scientific understanding of the environment.
Major breakthrough of the concept ‘environment’:
Around 1970, but before, people already tried to understand and control
environmental problems in different terms
This is called a conceptual anachronism (environmental problems).
Environment: the medieval city:
Pollution by fullers, tanners, soap makers, other urban industry: smells, smoke, taste,
waste, noise, etc.
Observable disturbances led to some measures:
1276: London regulations limit coal use
15th c. NL: carcasses are not allowed to be thrown on public roads.
Hygiene: epidemics, pestilence, etc. led to pest houses, draining of marshes.
Miasma theories: miasma= vapor that would come out of dirty water that would make
you sick (faulty, because the bacteria etc. in the water are the cause). Foul air as a
cause of disease (which worked, more or less).
This wrong theory led to interventions that actually helped.
Remarkably: The theory of contagion (putting people in quarantine), did not work.
Environment: rural areas:
Rural areas also showed early signs of environmental problems.
Netherlands 13th c.:
Compression of lowland peat (turf) through agriculture damming of streams.
, From 15th c.:
Peat exploitation created lakes, expanding in storms, even threatening cities.
The industrial city:
In 19th c. urban pollution worsened: air pollution (due to coal), water, waste led to
disease, epidemics: cholera, typhoid.
Hygienists: doctors & engineers for improvement of the urban environment, with
some success after 1850;
Miasma theory made way for microbiology (e.g. Koch or Pasteur) and early
epidemiology found patterns in the spread of urban epidemics.
Hesitant measures: first sewers (riolering), cleaner waters lightly better living
conditions
1875: Dutch hinderwet: nuisance law!
John Snow was able to convince the city government to establish a link between
cholera and water pumps in Soho, London, by creating maps. After the London
‘Great Stink’ in 1858, London decided to build sewers.
Statistics was an important tool for ‘hygienists’.
Solution in Amsterdam: first a weekly collection of poop buckets by the ‘boldootkar’
was established, ca. 1900. Later on, the first sewers (riolering) were built in the late
19th C.
Conclusions early environment:
Environmental problems are as old as civilization (with some conceptual
anachronism)
Throughout Middle Ages there were problems in cities and in rural areas, with some
early measures against nuisances (=hinder).
19th C.: more severe urban problems, including epidemics. Microbiology meant
contagion theories won from miasma theories. Measures still focused on nuisance
but now also public hygiene, such as with sewage control.
Nature: worth protecting?
At the end of the 19th century, the idea came around that nature was worth protecting.
Schollevaar island was drained in the 19th century, without protest against
‘unavoidable progress’.
‘The first step’: Naardermeer:
After a failed drainage project and a railroad line, Amsterdam intended to use it as a
landfill.
In 1900, Natuurmonumenten was founded. In 1905, it managed to buy the lake and
its marshes. Nature became a day trip destination for city dwellers, in search of an
‘authentic experience’.
Jacobus P. Thijsse: Natuurmonumenten (1865-1945):
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