CHAPTER 1 THE GREAT STINK In In the mid 1800s cities around the world were growing rapidly More and more people moved from rural agricultural areas into urban ones because the cities promised jobs In London United Kingdom for example the population exploded from approximately 500 000 residents in 1700 to 2 5 million in 1850 making it the largest city in the world at the time Cities were bustling places and cultural centers The Industrial Revolution 1760 1840 brought innovations in science industry and trade There were markets parks shops and factories People were able to
A cartoon from 1849 depicts London's polluted river as Dirty Father
enjoy theaters and music halls Yet for all the advances in London as well as other urban centers worldwide there was no means for the safe disposal of human waste Watch Your Step and Cover Your Nose The masses of people living in London in the mid 1800s translated into masses of waste at a time when flushing toilets hadn't yet gained popularity Some people dumped their waste into cesspits in their cellars but many of those cesspits leaked or overflowed Others disposed of human waste by simply throwing it out of windows into the street or defecating directly on the street itself Either way the result was that a walk down any city street was downright hazardous When it rained the rainwater cleaned the streets Waste then went into the various streams and rivers in the city The rivers then acted as sewers channeling all the waste into London's river Thames The river also happened to be a significant source of water pumped for human consumption People called out Regardez l eaul before tossing their waste out the window which literally translates to Watch out for the water This is the origin of the word loo which is what the British call the bathroom During the Victorian era 1837 1901 most people didn't know how to deal with waste People chucked it out the window walked around it on the street and held
handkerchiefs over their noses to avoid the smell but were too polite to discuss it As a result sanitation developments were at a standstill in a rapidly growing city Other large cities in the 1800s experienced stenches similar to London's including Melbourne Australia The smell rising from the open sewage gutters became so bad the city was nicknamed Smelbourne By the mid 1800s the Thames was dead The once vibrant fishing industry along its banks was gone Three in 20 babies born in London died before reaching the age of one In 1848 disease was so rampant in the city it claimed the lives of 14 000 people Marginal efforts to clean up London began in September 1848 with the establishment of the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers Although the government was talking about waste the efforts were inadequate and did not address the complete overhaul the city's sewage and drainage systems needed Snow in London As the number of people in the city grew so did the piles of excrement and disease Even containing it to outhouses did little to curb disease outbreaks because inadequate sewer systems leaked into sources of drinking water During an 1854 cholera outbreak Dr John Snow investigated his theory that the disease spread through infected water This was a revolutionary idea since most scientists at the time believed the disease spread through the stench in the air
