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What We Find in the Sewers
Our ancestors once spread their excess effluent on their fields; now we mine it for vital molecules.
The European wars of Religion(1522-1714) made Continental saltpeter supplies even less reliable, leading Queen Elizabeth to copy the French system of granting royal warrants, known as droit de fouille (“the right to dig”), which allowed agents to excavate any soil suspected of containing nitrates without having to compensate the landowner. The difficulties he experienced are attested to by his obituary, which bitterly notes: “A little more kindliness out of doors, and a more general and hearty support from the Board he served, might have prolonged a valuable life, which as it was, became embittered and shortened, by the labours, thwartings, and anxieties of a thankless office.” Chadwick and other radicals had campaigned for sewers largely to alleviate the miasmas they thought resulted in disease and increased the cost of Poor Law payments to local rate payers, seeing medical prevention as a cost-saving exercise.
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