Essay About Early 18Th Century And Noxious Fumes

Elizabethan
Essay title: Elizabethan
dfdsfinventors and police provided vivid horror stories of “miasmas,
plagues and sudden death” in the homes of London.
By the early 18th Century nearly every residence had a cesspit beneath
the floors. In the best of homes the nauseating stench permeated the most
elegant parlor. Indoor odors were often worse than of the garbage- and manure-
filled streets. While noxious fumes were ignored by most people, it was fear
of “night air” laden with coal smoke and sulfurous industrial fogs which
alarmed the City dweller.
Doors and windows of homes and factories were sealed shut at sunset to
protect occupants form entry of the feared “night air.” Entire families and
crews of workers died of mysterious “asphyxiation” during the night. Doctors
had no explanation for lingering illnesses and these sudden “miasmas”
occurring in the City. Vivid descriptions of horrible deaths were routinely
reported at Commission hearings and in the London tabloids.
Most fatalities and injuries described were consistent with asphyxiation
by hydrogen sulfide or oxygen deficiency or methane explosions. These
conditions remain common in sewers, septic tanks and confined spaces today.
When cesspits filled to overflow, they were built to drain to the street
by means of a crudely built culvert to a partially open sewer trench in