History
During the mid 1800s, when indoor plumbing was being developed, it was believed by many that disease was spread by miasmas, or literally "bad air." Originally, traps in plumbing drain pipes were designed to help keep this bad air from passing back into living spaces within buildings. However, during the Broad Street cholera outbreak in London, in the Summer of 1854, physician John Snow, among others, worked to prove that polluted water was the culprit, not the foul smells from sewage pipes. Subsequently, even as the Germ theory of disease developed, society was slow to accept the idea that odors from sewers were relatively harmless when it came to the spread of disease.
Read more about this topic: Sewer Gas
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Free from public debt, at peace with all the world, and with no complicated interests to consult in our intercourse with foreign powers, the present may be hailed as the epoch in our history the most favorable for the settlement of those principles in our domestic policy which shall be best calculated to give stability to our Republic and secure the blessings of freedom to our citizens.”
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