Page:Fires and Fire-fighters (1913).djvu/36

 CHAPTER III

may be safely asserted that the fire department of ancient Rome was better organized and better equipped than the rough and ready volunteer services maintained by the great European cities during the middle ages. There had, in fact, been a period of retrogression, which was coincident with the dismemberment of the Roman Empire, when all art and science languished in the chaos that ensued. Needless to say, the problems affecting fire control were relegated to the background, and, indeed, the art of destroying towns received more consideration than that of their preservation. Thus it is that no records can be found of mechanical appliances being used at the conflagrations which demolished Constantinople and Vienna. Indeed, this retrograde movement had so far affected the whole subject that even in the Renaissance, when Europe teemed with fresh ideas and new thought, no other method of fighting fires existed than the primitive bucket of the Pre-Roman period. By 1590, however, there were signs of an awakening interest and in an account of a fire in England the use of a monstrous syringe is related as the introduction of a novelty, although in reality it must have been practically a counterpart of the "siphonarius," mention of which was made in the last chapter. In 1615, a hand engine was made in Germany, but it was merely a pump without hose, the principle embodied being a rotary paddle wheel, which by being turned rapidly forced the water out through an orifice. This again was not new, the idea having probably been derived from Greek sources. Even in 1666, the good citizens of 12