It was not just places like Versailles that made little or no provision for disposal of human waste. Until the nineteenth century the streets of almost all European cities were fouled by sewage. This was somewhat amazing considering that, under the Roman Empire, the City of Rome enjoyed both fresh, clean drinking water as well as a sanitary sewer system. The main branch of this ancient sewer system, the Cloaca Maxima, after more than 2000 years, remains an operational part of the sewers of Rome. A small part of such a Roman system survives in England, in York.
Incredibly, even in Paris sewage flowed through the streets and through random drains into the Seine River until the middle 1800’s. Drinking water was withdrawn from nearby polluted rivers, including the dangerously polluted Seine. Disease epidemics such as cholera, typhoid fever, and other plagues were rife. Georges-Eugène Haussmann, Prefect of the Seine Department of France, was commissioned in 1853 by Napoleon III to completely renovate the city, which for the first time led to the construction of projects to comprehensively improve public health including clean drinking water (through a 600km aqueduct) and the magnificent municipal sewer system that tourists can visit today.
London was no better. For centuries the streets of London had also been fouled by sewage and, by the early 1800’s the Thames estuary was choked with sewage. Like Paris, waterborne diseases such as cholera were endemic. The sewage buildup finally culminated in a catastrophe called the “Great Stink” of 1858. Hot weather amplified the odor of the Thames so badly that the houses of parliament and many other parts of the city became barely habitable. It being obvious that the situation could no longer be tolerated, a massive system of public works similar to those in Paris was undertaken. A comprehensive system of sewers and clean water was finally achieved through this work.