Alongside antibiotics, water closets and sewerage systems must sit as being the two biggest contributors to lowering deaths due to epidemics. This post briefly covers the 19th century sewer systems constructed in London and New York.
Fascinating lecture by Stephen Halliday on how the London's sewerage system was built within a decade from 1859 to 1868 (its major parts) under the leadership of Chief Engineer to the Metropolitan Board of Works (which was London's first metropolitan government), Sir Joseph Bazalgette. It cost £4.2 million to build and was triggered by the Great Stink of 1858, arising from the accumulated sewer on Thames, which drove members of Parliament out of the chambers of House of Commons.
For a times ravaged by frequent eruptions of Cholera epidemics, which used to kill thousands, the sewer system was transformational. The Times wrote on March 16, 1891, on Bazalgette's obituary,
Of the great sewer that runs beneath Londoners know, as a rule, nothing, though the Registrar-General could tell them that its existence has already added twenty years to their chance of life.
London had no cholera since 1866, even as the disease continued to claim lives in other cities without such sewer.
Carliss Lentz has this review of three books about the New York sewer system by Joanne Abel Goldman (and also Halliday's book on London) and the Channel Tunnel.
Bazalgette was given taxing authority by the Parliament and given powers to borrow £3 million to complete his sewer system. He also adopted very strict quality audits of the new Portland cement and concrete used for the works. The New York system, again driven by the fear of epidemics, was modelled on London.
The Channel Tunnel consists of three 50 km long tunnels, one for each direction and a small service tunnel, and started in 1987 and carried its first trains by 1994. It was built by a consortium of five each of French and British firms. It was completely private financed.
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