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The Great Stink - Coggle Diagram
The Great Stink
The new sewer system
3 years earlier, Bazalgette was asked to create plans for a network of underground tunnels, or sewers, to intercept all the waste from around 1 million London estates before it had a chance to pollute the Thames
The beauty of Bazalgette's design was that it used gravity and the slop of the London river basin to enter the sewers and flow downstream into the sea
At Crossness, he built a pumping station where sewage was pumped to the level of the Thames. This was at high tide and was released into the river to the sea
MPs were desperate for London's streets to be free of sewage so they gave £3 million (roughly £1 billion today) in 1858 to start working immediately
With 318 million bricks, he managed to build 83 miles of sewers removing 420 million gallons of sewage a day
The sewers were finished by 1866 and were fully functional. Cholera never returned to London and the parliament went into action to improve public health
Other measured improved life expectancy too, as well as better nursing and surgery techniques. However, the 19th century saw government take much more responsibility for the state of public health
Intro
Its main river, the Thames, as a dumping ground for human sewage, rubbish, dung, slaughterhouse waste and chemicals from factories
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In 1858 London was a filthy, unhygienic, overcrowded city
Despite Dr Snow had worked out the link between cholera and dirty water supplies, the city streets remained as filthy as ever and was a breeding ground for disease
Laissez-faire
In 1867, working-class men living in towns were given the chance to vote. It was these same people who had been suffering the most from living in poor conditions
Soon, political parties realised that if they promised to improve conditions in towns, working-class people living there would vote for them
When the Conservative Party won the general election in 1874, it was mainly due to the votes from the working-class. Soon after, they introduced many new public health reforms
Many historians today thing that working-class people getting the vote is one of the most important reasons why politicians began to improve public health
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