Scientific Investigation of Ancient Sri Lankan Private Labor Room (Thimbiri Geya)

Abstract

Sri Lanka is a proud nation in the world for its ancient architectural and irrigational structures. Unlike today, the hospitals were not served for purpose of natural labor and delivery. Most of the houses have had a private labor room (Thimbiri Geya) for the purpose. However, the architectural plan of the labor room was different from the other bedrooms of the house. The room had provided the better quality of hygienic level and health conditions to the expecting mothers and the newborn babies. The room was sometimes used for other functions including the control of epidemic diseases, control of post childbirth psychosis and for healing wounds. It is interested to understand the scientific concepts behind this labor room and then, to learn and practice them if possible, for today’s world. Therefore, experiments were carried out using three sample labor rooms (3×4 square feet sized) under the same environmental conditions to scientifically investigate the ancient architecture. Unit A were constructed similar to the ancient labor room while unit B was constructed similar to the ancient labor room, but the walls were built by cement blocks and unit C was constructed according to the modern-day room with cement floors. These three rooms were monitored for atmospheric temperature, atmospheric humidity, dissolved oxygen (DO) of water samples of well water and pipe born water and microbial actions on some selected food (bread, meat and fish). It was found out that the room temperature and humidity levels of unit A were much lower to the other rooms and the three strata of floor in unit A could be reason for those. In addition, higher DO levels and lower microbial activities were recorded in unit A. The results suggest the usage of ancient system is a way forward approach in the path of sustainability in health care facilities in the modern world. However, it is also advised to have more experiments in a longer time span to reveal more interesting features of the ancient labor room (Thimbiri Geya) in Sri Lanka.