The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World

by Steven Johnson

In the space of about thirty-five years, the Thames had been transformed from a fishing ground teeming with salmon to one of the most polluted waterways in the world—all in the name of public health. As the builder Thomas Cubbitt observed wryly: “The Thames is now made a great cesspool instead of each person having one of his own.”