WonderHistory fact

In the hot summer of 1858, the Thames, full of London's raw sewage, smelled so bad that Parliament soaked its curtains in chloride of lime, a disinfectant, to block it. This Great Stink pushed MPs to approve a new sewer system in just 18 days.

London, 1858

The story behind the card

For years London's toilets and drains had emptied into the Thames, and cholera had killed tens of thousands; most doctors blamed the smell itself, a belief called miasma theory. In the heat of June 1858 business in Parliament was disrupted, and moving it to Oxford or St Albans was discussed. Engineer Joseph Bazalgette then built 132 km of large brick sewers and about 1,800 km of street sewers, carrying waste east, away from the city. He is said to have made the pipes far wider than the calculations required, which helped the network cope as London grew. Built to remove bad air, the system also kept sewage out of drinking water, and London's last cholera epidemic, in 1866, struck an area not yet connected.

Türkçe oku

1858'in sıcak yazında Londra'nın lağım sularıyla dolan Thames Nehri öyle koktu ki Parlamento, kokuyu kesmek için perdelerini bir dezenfektan olan kireç kaymağına batırdı. “Büyük Koku” diye anılan bu olay, milletvekillerinin yeni bir kanalizasyon sistemini yalnızca 18 günde onaylamasını sağladı.

Londra, 1858

Londra'nın tuvaletleri ve lağımları yıllarca doğrudan Thames'e akıyordu; kolera on binlerce kişinin ölümüne yol açmıştı. Hekimlerin çoğu hastalığın kötü kokulu havadan yayıldığına inanıyordu; buna miasma kuramı denir. Haziran 1858'in sıcağında Parlamento çalışamaz hâle geldi, meclisin Oxford'a ya da St Albans'a taşınması bile konuşuldu. Ardından mühendis Joseph Bazalgette 132 kilometre uzunluğunda büyük tuğla ana kanallar ve yaklaşık 1.800 kilometrelik sokak kanalizasyonu yaptı; atıklar kentin doğusuna, uzağa taşındı. Bazalgette'in boruları hesapların gerektirdiğinden çok daha geniş yaptığı anlatılır; bu da sistemin büyüyen Londra'ya yetmesini sağladı. Kötü havayı gidermek için kurulan sistem, lağımı içme suyundan da uzak tuttu. Londra'daki son kolera salgını, 1866'da henüz sisteme bağlanmamış bir bölgede yaşandı.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Great Stink

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Next card in the archiveIn 1854 London doctor John Snow mapped the deaths in a cholera outbreak in Soho and saw that they clustered around a single public water pump on Broad Street. He persuaded the parish to remove the pump's handle, and gave strong evidence that cholera spreads through dirty water.Read next →

In the hot summer of 1858, the Thames, full of London's raw sewage, smelled so bad that Parliament soaked its curtains in chloride of lime, a disinfectant, to block it. This Great Stink pushed MPs to approve a new sewer system in just 18 days.

The story behind the card

Sources and further reading

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