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Hold Your Nose · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Nke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
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  Speaker 2: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
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  Speaker 2: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
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  Speaker 2: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Long before the flush
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  Speaker 2: toilet became commonplace, humanity grappled with a persistent, pungent problem,
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  Speaker 2: how and where to dispose of our own waste? We
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  Speaker 2: know that ancient Mesopotamia had some plumbing technology. They built
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  Speaker 2: a system of clay pipes that carried waste away when
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  Speaker 2: rainwater flushed the system, but far too often the refuse
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  Speaker 2: simply ended up as a feted pool just outside the
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  Speaker 2: outskirts of town. Rome also adopted a kind of sewer system,
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  Speaker 2: but it was used largely to drain rain water from
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  Speaker 2: city streets, not for human waste in the modern sense.
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  Speaker 2: Even in more recent centuries, many people still relied on
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  Speaker 2: chamber pots and cesspools, holes dug to hold waste until
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  Speaker 2: they overflowed or were emptied. In many cities, the smell,
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  Speaker 2: pestilence and sheer volume of refuse were visible reminders that
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  Speaker 2: sanitation was not simply a domestic task but public good.
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  Speaker 2: Nowhere was this more true than in Victorian England, where
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  Speaker 2: the sweltering summer of eighteen fifty eight created the conditions
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  Speaker 2: for a public disaster that came to be known as
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  Speaker 2: the Big Stink. London in the eighteen hundreds did not
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  Speaker 2: have what you would consider to be a modern waste
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  Speaker 2: disposal system. People used chamber pots, which would then be
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  Speaker 2: emptied into cesspits dug nearby the nearest river, or even worse,
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  Speaker 2: would just empty them into the streets. All over the cities,
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  Speaker 2: ditches and waterways were clogged with feces. Neighbors would fight
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  Speaker 2: over cesspits dug too close to one another's homes, which
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  Speaker 2: would seep into their basements and walls. These pits, of course,
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  Speaker 2: would fill up, and so night men were paid to
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  Speaker 2: remove the waste after the world had gone to sleep
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  Speaker 2: and carted off to farms to fertilize crops. It was
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  Speaker 2: an imperfect system, to say the least, but it would
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  Speaker 2: only get worse. Between eighteen hundred and eighteen fifty London's
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  Speaker 2: population exploded, and by eighteen fifty eight, two and a
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  Speaker 2: half million people called it home. Overcrowding was a major issue,
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  Speaker 2: and along with the people came the people's waist. The
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  Speaker 2: city's infrastructure did not keep pace with the massive influx
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  Speaker 2: of newly minted Londoners. Suddenly there were nearly twice as
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  Speaker 2: many people dumping their waste into cesspits, making it expensive
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  Speaker 2: to transport away. The drains and gutters that were frequently
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  Speaker 2: used to remove feces all emptied into the Thames and
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  Speaker 2: its tributaries. Refuse accumulated, and slowly the river itself became
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  Speaker 2: a sewer, taking in not only human waste but that
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  Speaker 2: of livestock, as well as the factory run off that
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  Speaker 2: was a consequence of the Industrial Revolution. Regular outbreaks of
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  Speaker 2: cholera killed over ten thousand Londoners. The city was groaning
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  Speaker 2: under the pressure of its own excrement. The summer of
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  Speaker 2: eighteen fifty eight proved to be the tipping point. It's
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  Speaker 2: fair to say that the summer that year was hot
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  Speaker 2: and dry. The lack of rain meant that the Thames
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  Speaker 2: water levels were lower than usual, and this meant that
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  Speaker 2: waste that it normally carried away to sea was instead
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  Speaker 2: drying on the river bank. In the sweltering heat, the
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  Speaker 2: stench became overpowering, so much so that the rich people
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  Speaker 2: left the city for the fresh air of the countryside,
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  Speaker 2: and the poor folks had to stay indoors as much
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  Speaker 2: as they could afford. And for the poor guys who
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  Speaker 2: had to stick around and work in the Parliament building,
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  Speaker 2: they soaked the curtains with chloride of lime to fight
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  Speaker 2: the smell.
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  Speaker 1: And although Parliament had been debating sanitation for years, very
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  Speaker 1: little progress had been made toward real reform, and the stench,
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  Speaker 1: mixed with harsh headlines and public rage, finally forced the
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  Speaker 1: government's hand. Within eighteen days of its introduction, a bill
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  Speaker 1: to fund new infrastructure was passed into law. Enter Joseph Basiljet,
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  Speaker 1: a civil engineer who was appointed to lead the charge.
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  Speaker 1: Basiljet developed an ambitious design of underground brick sewers and
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  Speaker 1: powerful pumping stations to move London's waste beyond the city
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  Speaker 1: and release it into the tidal Thames, where currents would
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  Speaker 1: carry it away. Work began almost immediately. Between eighteen fifty
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  Speaker 1: eight and eighteen seventy five, miles of tunnels were dug
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  Speaker 1: reinforced with hundreds of millions of bricks, It was one
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  Speaker 1: of the largest infrastructure projects of its day, solving London's
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  Speaker 1: sewage problem and paving the way for modern urban sanitation
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  Speaker 1: everywhere else. The Great Stink was disastrous, but its legacy
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  Speaker 1: was structural and profound. The immediate crisis ended, and cholera
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  Speaker 1: outbreaks in London dwindled in subsequent years as waste disposed,
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  Speaker 1: improved in water quality rows and as wild as it sounds,
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  Speaker 1: basljets sewers still underpin London's sanitation network today, even as
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  Speaker 1: new pressures emerge from the ever increasing population and climate
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  Speaker 1: driven rainfall. The event remains a milestone in sanitation history,
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  Speaker 1: how environmental, sanitary, and political pressures collided to force a
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  Speaker 1: major infrastructure overhaul. Visiting the Thames today, it's hard to
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  Speaker 1: imagine what it once was. A stinking, disease ridden sewer.
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  Speaker 1: It's a curious tale, to say the least. Thanks to
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  Speaker 1: bold engineering and public health reform, the city has been transformed.
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  Speaker 1: The Great Stink stands as a dramatic reminder of how
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  Speaker 1: ignoring waste doesn't just stink, It also causes outbreaks of
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  Speaker 1: preventable disease and makes the city that one lives in
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  Speaker 1: completely unlivable. I think it's fair to say that meteorology,
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  Speaker 1: the scientific study of the atmosphere in an attempt to
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  Speaker 1: predict the weather, is often misunderstood. People expect the weather
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  Speaker 1: anchor on TV to be accurate all the time. They
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  Speaker 1: think that predicting the weather is the same as seeing
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  Speaker 1: the future. But all weather people can do is look
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  Speaker 1: at past trends and current conditions and say how likely
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  Speaker 1: something is to happen. A ninety percent chance of rain
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  Speaker 1: means that it still might not rain. But that's science
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  Speaker 1: using evidence to form a hypothesis. If you want magic, well,
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  Speaker 1: A curious story from eighteen ninety one shows us just
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  Speaker 1: how well it goes when humankind tries to bend the
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  Speaker 1: weather to its will. Robert G. Deer and Foth wasn't
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  Speaker 1: a scientist, but he was an engineer, and his friend
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  Speaker 1: Edward Powers was a retired Civil War general. However, in
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  Speaker 1: eighteen ninety one, the two had formed a hypothesis. During
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  Speaker 1: the war, Edward noticed that it was almost always raining
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  Speaker 1: following a big battle. This led to their concussion theory,
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  Speaker 1: the idea that sonic waves from loud explosions would jostle
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  Speaker 1: the rain right out of the clouds. Now, you might
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  Speaker 1: already be questioning this, but just bear with me. Congress
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  Speaker 1: thought that it was a decent theory, and so they
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  Speaker 1: gave Robert and Edward seven thousand dollars back then that's
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  Speaker 1: worth about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars today. To
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  Speaker 1: test their theory, they set up their experiment on a
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  Speaker 1: ranch in Illinois, lining the fields with mortars packed with
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  Speaker 1: blasting powder from nearby mines. They also set up several
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  Speaker 1: rows of hydrogen balloons, and they would hoist these balloons
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  Speaker 1: into the air and then shoot at them to create
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  Speaker 1: an even louder sound. Soon everything was ready, Roberts, Edward
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  Speaker 1: and their associates lit the fuses and plugged their ears.
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  Speaker 1: Massive thundering blasts sounded out across the fields as the
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  Speaker 1: mortars fired. The booming pops of the hydrogen balloons sent
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  Speaker 1: birds flying from the trees. The noise continued for hours.
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  Speaker 1: It almost sounded like the Civil War was back on.
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  Speaker 1: Once the men were done firing, the silence that followed
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  Speaker 1: was almost just as deafening. They looked to the skies,
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  Speaker 1: where storm clouds were gathering. They held their breath as
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  Speaker 1: something extraordinary took place. Rain began to trickle down from above.
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  Speaker 1: The men jumped for joy their experiment had worked. The
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  Speaker 1: next day, that trickle turned into a downpour. However, the
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  Speaker 1: local meteorologist was about to rain on Robert and Edward's parade.
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  Speaker 1: No pun intended, I swear, wink wink. He had predicted
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  Speaker 1: this rain. It was likely to happen with or without
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  Speaker 1: their experiment. The two men were forced to concede defeat,
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  Speaker 1: at least for now, but they continued to champion their theory. Eventually,
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  Speaker 1: the mayor of El Paso, Texas took notice and asked
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  Speaker 1: Robert's team to come test his theory in their town.
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  Speaker 1: They used the same artillery and the same balloon system,
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  Speaker 1: but this time it rained only on the opposite side
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  Speaker 1: of the city where the experiment took place. It was
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  Speaker 1: even more of a mediocre result. Robert continued his experiments
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  Speaker 1: throughout the Southwest, but his methods didn't seem to have
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  Speaker 1: much of an effort. He always wanted to take credit
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  Speaker 1: for rain that was just as likely to have happened
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  Speaker 1: without his concussive blasts. This didn't stop others from trying
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  Speaker 1: similar experiments over the decades, though there are reports of
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  Speaker 1: other concussion weather experiments from his late as nineteen eleven.
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  Speaker 1: But as the scientific method came into focus, the problems
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  Speaker 1: with the concussion theory became clear. For one, that initial
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  Speaker 1: observation by Edward powers that rain always seemed to follow
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  Speaker 1: a battle is all correlation without causation. He may have
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  Speaker 1: just been fighting during a rainy period or in a
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  Speaker 1: rainy region. Most Civil War battles were fought in Southern States,
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  Speaker 1: where it does rain a lot. And second, once he
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  Speaker 1: started to form his theory, observation bias may have led
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  Speaker 1: him to only notice when it did rain and ignore
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  Speaker 1: when it didn't. He wasn't considering the actual mechanisms that
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  Speaker 1: cause rain, evaporation, condensation, and precipitation. Those were already well
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  Speaker 1: studied phenomena. Robert and Edward's hypothesis basically ignored the water
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  Speaker 1: cycle completely and instead put forth the idea that rain
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  Speaker 1: could just be shaken out of the clouds like fruit
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  Speaker 1: from a tree. In the scientific method, a hypothesis typically
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  Speaker 1: doesn't even make it to the testing stage if it
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  Speaker 1: can't stand up to existing evidence. That seven thousand dollars
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  Speaker 1: grant from Congress was truly a waste of money without
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  Speaker 1: understanding the scientific method and studying the research that had
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  Speaker 1: already been done. These men were pretty much on par
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  Speaker 1: with medieval alchemists trying to turn lead into gold or,
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  Speaker 1: in this case, dynamite into rain. If you're a longtime
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  Speaker 1: listener of this show, you know that it never hurts
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  Speaker 1: to be curious, but pointing that curiosity in the right
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  Speaker 1: direction is important. A meteorologist guessing when it might rain
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  Speaker 1: may not be perfect, but it's a lot more reliable
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  Speaker 1: than hurling explosives at a cloud and hoping for the best.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
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  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 1: This show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
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  Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
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  Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
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  Speaker 1: Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.