Making the City Inhabitable: London’s Sewer System

Abstract

In the middle of the nineteenth century London was the world’s most populous
city and the capital of the great British Empire. It also was a metropolis beset
by critical problems, wherein millions of residents wallowed in the city’s own
sewage and tens of thousands died of cholera. Finally, the nauseating
experience of the Great Stink incited certain persons to cleanse the city of its
deadly filth. This article tells the story of how London became mired in its
own excrement and how Sir Joseph Bazalgette and Dr. John Snow saved the
city from choking on it.