Middle and early modern age
A 1939 conceptual illustration showing various ways that typhoid bacteria can
contaminate a water well (center)
Waterworks (Wasserkunst)
and fountain from 1602 in Wismar,
Germany. In medieval European cities, small natural waterways used for carrying
off wastewater were eventually covered over and
functioned as sewers.
London's River
Fleet is such a system. Open drains, or gutters, for waste water
run-off ran along the center of some streets. These were known as
"kennels" (i.e., canals, channels), and in Paris were sometimes known
as “split streets,” as the waste water running along the middle physically
split the streets into two halves. The first closed sewer constructed in Paris
was designed by Hugues Aubird in 1370 on Monmartre Street, and was 300 meters
long. The original purpose of designing and constructing a closed sewer in
Paris was less-so for waste management as much as it was to hold back the
stench coming from the odorous waste water.
Pail closets, outhouses, and cesspits were used to collect
human waste. The use of human waste as fertilizer was especially
important in China and Japan, where cattle manure was less available. However,
most cities did not have a functioning sewer system before the Industrial era, relying instead on
nearby rivers or occasional rain showers to wash away the sewage from the streets. In some
places, waste
water simply
ran down the streets, which had stepping stones to keep pedestrians
out of the muck, and eventually drained as runoff into the local watershed.
In the 16th century, Sir John Harington invented a flush toilet as a device for Queen Elizabeth I (his godmother) that
released wastes into cesspools.
After the adoption
of gunpowder, municipal outhouses
became an important source of raw material for the making of saltpeter in European countries.
In London, the contents of
the city's outhouses were collected every night by commissioned wagons and
delivered to the nitrite beds where it was laid into specially designed soil
beds to produce earth rich in mineral nitrates. The nitrate rich-earth would be
then further processed to produce saltpeter, or potassium nitrate, an important ingredient
in black
powder that
played a part in the making of gunpowder.
Classic
and Early Modern Mesoamerica
The Classic Maya at Palenque had underground
aqueducts and flush
toilets;
the Classic Maya even used household water filters using locally abundant
limestone carved into a porous cylinder, made so as to work in a manner
strikingly similar to Modern ceramic water filters.
Sewage
farms for disposal and irrigation
“Sewage farms” (i.e. wastewater
application to the land for disposal and agricultural use) were operated in
Bunzlau (Silesia) in 1531, in Edinburgh (Scotland) in 1650, in Paris (France)
in 1868, in Berlin (Germany) in 1876 and in different parts of the USA since
1871, where wastewater was used for beneficial crop production. In the
following centuries (16th and 18th centuries) in many rapidly growing countries/cities
of Europe (e.g. Germany, France) and the United States, “sewage farms” were
increasingly seen as a solution for the disposal of large volumes of the
wastewater, some of which are still in operation today. Irrigation with
sewage and other wastewater effluents has a long history also in China and
India; while also a large “sewage farm” was established in Melbourne,
Australia in 1897.
Modern age Sewer
systems
Many industrialized cities had incomplete public sanitation well
into the 20th century. Outhouses in Brisbane,
Australia, around 1950.
A significant development
was the construction of a network of sewers to collect wastewater. In some
cities, including
Rome, Istanbul (Constantinople) and Fustat, networked ancient sewer systems continue to
function today as collection systems for those cities' modernized sewer
systems. Instead of flowing to a river or the sea, the pipes have been
re-routed to modern sewer treatment facilities.
However, until the Enlightenment era, little progress was made
in water supply and sanitation and the engineering skills of the Romans were
largely neglected throughout Europe. This began to change in the 17th and 18th
centuries with a rapid expansion in waterworks and pumping systems.
The tremendous growth of cities during the Industrial Revolution quickly led to terribly over-polluted streets, which acted
as a constant source for the outbreak of disease.
People wealthy enough to
enjoy 19th century flush toilets
often had the political
power to allow them to drain into public sewers; and the practice became the
norm as indoor plumbing became more common, based on large-scale supply
networks such as the Croton Aqueduct in New York.
As cities grew in the 19th
century, increasing concerns were raised about public health. As part of a trend
of municipal
sanitation programs in the late
19th and 20th centuries, many cities constructed extensive sewer systems to
help control outbreaks of disease such as typhoid and cholera.
Initially these systems
discharged sewage directly to surface waters without
treatment. Later, cities attempted to treat the sewage before discharge in
order to prevent water pollution and waterborne diseases.
During the half-century
around 1900, these public health interventions
succeeded in drastically reducing the incidence of water-borne diseases among
the urban population, and were an important cause in the increases of life expectancy experienced at the
time.
Early techniques involved
land application of sewage on agricultural land. The use of the land
treatment systems continued into the nineteenth/twentieth century in central
Europe, USA, and other locations all over the world, but not without causing
serious public health concerns and negative environmental impacts. During 1840s
and 1850s, this practice resulted in disastrous spread of waterborne diseases
like cholera and typhoid.
However, when the water
supply links with these diseases became clear, engineering solutions were
implemented that include the development of alternative water sources using
reservoirs and aqueduct systems, relocation of water intakes, and water and
wastewater treatment systems.
In the late 19th century
some cities began to add chemical treatment and sedimentation systems to their sewers.
Most cities in the Western
world added more expensive systems for sewage treatment in the 20th century,
after scientists at the University of Manchester discovered the sewage treatment process
of activated sludge in 1912.
Storm and sanitary sewers were necessarily
developed along with the growth of cities. By the 1840s the luxury of indoor plumbing, which mixes human waste
with water and flushes it away, eliminated the need for cesspools. Odor was considered the
big problem in waste disposal and to address it, sewage could be drained to
a lagoon, or "settled"
and the solids removed, to be disposed of separately. This process is now
called "primary treatment" and the settled solids are called
"sludge."
London and other
cities, UK
As recently as the late
19th century sewerage systems in some parts of the rapidly
industrializing United Kingdom
were so inadequate
that water-borne diseases such as cholera and typhoid remained a risk.
From as early as 1535
there were efforts to stop polluting the River Thames in London. Beginning with an Act
passed that year that was to prohibit the dumping of excrement into the river.
Leading up to the Industrial Revolution the River Thames was identified as
being thick and black due to sewage, and it was even said that the river
“smells like death.”
As Britain was the first
country to industrialize, it was also the first to experience the disastrous
consequences of major urbanization and was the first to
construct a modern sewerage system to mitigate the resultant unsanitary
conditions. During the early 19th century, the River Thames was
effectively an open sewer, leading to frequent outbreaks of cholera epidemics. Proposals
to modernize the sewerage system had been made during 1856, but were neglected
due to lack of funds. However, after the Great
Stink of
1858, Parliament realized the urgency of the problem and resolved to create
a modern sewerage system.
Joseph Bazalgette, a civil engineer and Chief Engineer
of the Metropolitan Board of Works, was given responsibility for the work. He
designed an extensive underground sewerage system that diverted waste to
the Thames
Estuary,
downstream of the main center of population. Six main interceptor sewers,
totaling almost 100 miles in length, were constructed, some incorporating
stretches of London's 'lost' rivers. Three of these sewers were north of the river, the
southernmost, low-level one being incorporated in the Thames Embankment. The Embankment also
allowed new roads, new public gardens, and the Circle Line of the London Underground.
The intercepting sewers,
constructed between 1859 and 1865, were fed by 450 miles of main sewers that,
in turn, conveyed the contents of some 13,000 miles of smaller local sewers.
Construction of the interceptor system required 318 million bricks, 2.7 million
cubic metres of excavated earth and 670,000 cubic metres of concrete. Gravity allowed the sewage
to flow eastwards, but in places such as Chelsea,
Deptford and Abbey Mills, pumping stations were built to raise the water and provide
sufficient flow. Sewers north of the Thames feed into the Northern Outfall Sewer, which fed into a major treatment works at Beckton. South of the river, the Southern Outfall Sewer extended to a similar facility at Crossness. With only minor modifications, Bazalgette's engineering
achievement remains the basis for sewerage design up into the present day.
In Merthyr Tydfil, a large town in South Wales, most houses discharged
their sewage to individual cess-pits which
persistently overflowed causing the pavements to be awash with foul sewage.
Paris, France
In 1802 Napoleon built the Ourcq canal which brought 70,000 cubic meters of
water a day to Paris, while the Seine river received up to 100,000 cubic meters of wastewater
per day. The Paris cholera epidemic of 1832 sharpened the public awareness of
the necessity for some sort of drainage system to deal with sewage and waste
water in a better and healthier way.
Between 1865 and 1920
Eugene Belgrand lead the development of a large scale system for water supply
and waste water management. Between these years approximately 600 kilometres of
aqueducts were built to bring in potable spring water, which freed the poor
quality water to be used for flushing streets and sewers. By 1894 laws were
passed which made drainage mandatory. The treatment of Paris sewage, though,
was left to natural devices as 5,000 hectares of land were used to spread the
waste out to be naturally purified. Further, the lack of sewage treatment left
Parisian sewage pollution to become concentrated downstream in the town of
Clichy, effectively forcing residents to pack up and move elsewhere. The 19th century brick-vaulted Paris sewers serve as a tourist
attraction nowadays.
Hamburg and
Frankfurt, Germany
The first comprehensive
sewer system in a German city was built in Hamburg, Germany in the mid-19th
century.
In 1863, work began on the
construction of a modern sewerage system for the rapidly growing city of Frankfurt am Main, based on design work
by William
Lindley.
20 years after the system's completion, the death rate from typhoid
had fallen from 80 to 10
per 100,000 inhabitants.
USA
The first sewer systems in
the United States were built in the late 1850s in Chicago and Brooklyn. In the United States, the first sewage
treatment plant using chemical precipitation was built in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1890.
Sewage
treatment plants
At the end of the 19th
century, since primary treatment still left odor problems, it was discovered
that bad odors could be prevented by introducing oxygen into the decomposing
sewage. This was the beginning of the biological aerobic and anaerobic
treatments which are fundamental to waste water processes.
As pollution of water bodies
became a concern, cities attempted to treat the sewage before
discharge. In the late 19th century some cities began to add chemical
treatment and sedimentation systems to their sewers. In the United States, the
first sewage treatment plant using chemical precipitation was built in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1890. Most cities in the
Western world added more expensive systems for sewage treatment in the early 20th
century, after scientists at the University of Manchester
discovered the sewage
treatment process of activated sludge in 1912. During
the half-century around 1900, these public health interventions succeeded
in drastically reducing the incidence of water-borne diseases among the urban
population, and were an important cause in the increases of life expectancy experienced at the
time.
Toilets
With the onset of the
industrial revolution and related advances in technology, the flush toilet began to emerge into
its modern form. It needs to be connected to a sewer system though. Where this
is not feasible or desired, dry toilets are an alternative
option.
Water
supply
Chelsea Waterworks, 1752.
Two Newcomen beam engines pumped Thames water from a canal to reservoirs
at Green Park and Hyde Park.
An ambitious engineering
project to bring fresh water from Hertfordshire to London was undertaken
by Hugh
Myddleton
who oversaw the construction of the New River between 1609 and 1613. The New River Company became one of the
largest private water companies of the time, supplying the City of London and other central
areas.
It was in the 18th century
that a rapidly growing population fueled a boom in the establishment of private
water supply networks in London. The Chelsea Waterworks Company was established in 1723
"for the better supplying the City and Liberties of Westminster and parts adjacent
with water".
The company created
extensive ponds in the area bordering Chelsea and Pimlico using water from the tidal Thames. Other waterworks were
established in London, including at West Ham in 1743, at Lea Bridge before 1767, Lambeth Waterworks Company in 1785, West Middlesex Waterworks Company in
1806 and Grand Junction Waterworks Company in 1811.
The S-bend pipe was invented
by Alexander Cummings in 1775 but became known as the U-bend following the
introduction of the U-shaped trap by Thomas Crapper in 1880. The first
screw-down water tap was patented in 1845
by Guest and Chrimes, a brass foundry in Rotherham.
Water
treatment
Founders of microscopy, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek and
Robert Hooke, used the newly
invented microscope to observe for the
first time small material particles that were suspended in the water, laying
the groundwork for the future understanding of waterborne pathogens and waterborne diseases.
Sand filter
cholera cases in the London epidemic of 1854.
Sir Francis Bacon attempted to desalinate sea
water by passing the flow through a sand
filter. Although his experiment didn't succeed, it marked the
beginning of a new interest in the field.
The first documented use
of sand
filters to
purify the water supply dates to 1804, when the owner of a bleachery in Paisley, Scotland, John Gibb, installed an
experimental filter, selling his unwanted surplus to the public. This
method was refined in the following two decades by engineers working for
private water companies, and it culminated in the first treated public water
supply in the world, installed by engineer James Simpson for the Chelsea Waterworks Company in London in 1829. This
installation provided filtered water for every resident of the area, and the
network design was widely copied throughout the United Kingdom in the ensuing
decades.
The practice of water
treatment soon became mainstream, and the virtues of the system were made
starkly apparent after the investigations of the physician John Snow during the 1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak. Snow was skeptical of
the then-dominant miasma theory that stated that
diseases were caused by noxious "bad airs".
Although the germ theory of disease had not yet been developed, Snow's observations led him to
discount the prevailing theory. His 1855 essay On the Mode of Communication of Cholera conclusively
demonstrated the role of the water supply in spreading the cholera epidemic
in Soho, with the use of a dot distribution map and statistical proof to illustrate the connection between
the quality of the water source and cholera cases. His data convinced the local
council to disable the water pump, which promptly ended the outbreak.
The Metropolis Water Act introduced the regulation of the water supply companies in London, including minimum
standards of water quality for the first time. The Act "made provision for
securing the supply to the Metropolis of pure and wholesome water", and
required that all water be "effectually filtered" from 31 December
1855. This was followed up with legislation for the mandatory inspection of
water quality, including comprehensive chemical analyses, in 1858. This
legislation set a worldwide precedent for similar state public health
interventions across Europe.
The Metropolitan Commission of Sewers was formed at the
same time, water filtration was adopted throughout the country, and new water
intakes on the Thames were established
above Teddington Lock.
Automatic pressure filters, where the water is forced under pressure through
the filtration system, were innovated in 1899 in England.
Water chlorination
In what may have been one
of the first attempts to use chlorine, William Soper used chlorinated lime to
treat the sewage produced by typhoid patients in 1879. In
a paper published in 1894, Moritz Traube formally proposed
the addition of chloride of lime (calcium hypochlorite) to water to render it "germ-free." Two other
investigators confirmed Traube’s findings and published their papers in
1895. Early attempts at implementing water chlorination at a water
treatment plant were made in 1893 in Hamburg,
Germany and in 1897 the city
of Maidstone England was the first to
have its entire water supply treated with chlorine.
Permanent water
chlorination began in 1905, when a faulty slow sand filter and a contaminated
water supply led to a serious typhoid fever epidemic in Lincoln, England. Dr. Alexander
Cruickshank Houston used chlorination of the water to stem the epidemic. His
installation fed a concentrated solution of chloride of lime to the water being
treated. The chlorination of the water supply helped stop the epidemic and as a
precaution, the chlorination was continued until 1911 when a new water supply
was instituted.
Manual Control Chlorinator for the liquefaction of chlorine for
water purification, early 20th century. From Chlorination of Water by Joseph Race, 1918.
The first continuous use
of chlorine in the United States for disinfection
took place in 1908 at Boonton Reservoir (on the Rockaway River), which served as the
supply for Jersey City, New Jersey. Chlorination was achieved by controlled additions of dilute
solutions of chloride of lime (calcium hypochlorite) at doses of 0.2 to 0.35 ppm. The treatment process was
conceived by Dr. John L. Leal and the chlorination plant was designed by George Warren Fuller. Over the next few
years, chlorine disinfection using chloride of lime were rapidly installed in
drinking water systems around the world.
The technique of
purification of drinking water by use of compressed liquefied chlorine gas was
developed by a British officer in the Indian Medical Service, Vincent B. Nesfield, in 1903. According to his own account,
"It occurred to me that chlorine gas might be found satisfactory ... if
suitable means could be found for using it.... The next important question was
how to render the gas portable. This might be accomplished in two ways: By
liquefying it, and storing it in lead-lined iron vessels, having a jet with a
very fine capillary canal, and fitted with a tap or a screw cap. The tap is
turned on, and the cylinder placed in the amount of water required. The
chlorine bubbles out, and in ten to fifteen minutes the water is absolutely
safe. This method would be of use on a large scale, as for service water
carts."
U.S. Army Major Carl Rogers Darnall, Professor of Chemistry at the Army Medical School, gave the first practical demonstration of this in 1910.
Shortly thereafter, Major William J. L. Lyster of the Army Medical Department used a solution of calcium hypochlorite in a linen bag to treat water. For many decades, Lyster's
method remained the standard for U.S. ground forces in the field and in camps,
implemented in the form of the familiar Lyster Bag (also spelled Lister Bag).
This work became the basis for present day systems of municipal water purification.
Comments
Water
chlorination, water treatment, sewer systems and antibiotics were slow coming. The
development of the microscope was distracted by out fascination with
telescopes. The growth of big cities in the 1800s required to accomplish the Industrial
Revolution neglected the preparation of these cities to be safe. The Medical
profession was slow to catch on to understanding anything useful to treat inflammation
or prevent and treat communicable diseases. We had centuries of plagues, but little interest
in preventing them.
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