Abstract

The latter of half of the nineteenth century was a period of many changes in the daily lives of city dwellers. For North Americans, health inspectors and permanent boards of health were instituted, and connections to water and sewer systems became widely available for the first time. The domestic sanitary movement, promoting cleanliness of the home and person as a means to be spared epidemic diseases such as smallpox and cholera, was also on the rise. Water and sewer connections combined with the promotion of personal, domestic, and municipal sanitation and hygiene should have improved life in urban centres, though the image of the nineteenth century city provided by documents and artifacts is just the opposite. Preserved insect and parasite remains were studied to elucidate further details about the sanitary and hygienic conditions of the Hunt Site in Québec City between 1850-1900. The results, based on the study of a latrine system amongst other structures will be presented in this discussion.