The ancients recognised in very early times the need of sanitary precautions to protect themselves from the onslaught of disease and the consequent decimation of their race. We find Mena, King of Egypt (5000 B.C.), mentioning in his Ordinances that offences in diet were one of the things through which "the genius of death becomes eager to destroy men." The Levitical Laws contain many enactments of a sanitary character, they are one of the oldest known sanitary codes, and have many wise and necessary provisions for the health of the people. Rules for the conduct of rural life were formulated so far back as 100-500 B.C. in Boeotia. Tarquinus Priscus began and Tarquinus Superbus completed the great works for the drainage of Rome in the fourth and fifth centuries B.C., of which the Cloaca Maxima was the most remarkable feature; even to-day the ancient water-supply of Rome and her system of baths are still a source of admiration to the modern world. And to their credit be it said that the Romans carried this knowledge with them to the countries which they conquered; we find aqueducts at Great Chester and Lanchester, an arterial sewer at Lincoln, and the well-known baths at Bath. From the destruction of Rome until well-nigh ten centuries later was a period in which no advance in sanitation was made; on the contrary, retrogression was the keynote of the time. Warfare, religious segregation, and the spread of asceticism were the chief reasons for this; the ideals of both Christian and Pagan were opposed to personal and public hygiene. "The ascetic violated all laws of personal hygiene, the monastery's ideal was inconsistent with public hygiene, and both glorified God by teaching submission to pestilence,"[11] which from time to time swept over the country, devastating it from end to end.