John Snow’s analysis of London’s cholera outbreaks in the 1850s formed the scientific basis for overturning miasma theories and connecting the disease with infected water. A further spur to sewage reform was Pasteur’s early work confirming the germ theory of disease. And with the 1865 completion of Joseph Bazalgette’s five new sewer lines that transported waste to the east out of the city, the capital freed itself from major cholera outbreaks—if at considerable expense.12
