Sanitation

The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World  by Steven Johnson, Riverhead Books, 2006.  Cholera This book is a study of the outbreak of cholera in London in 1854. Cholera originated in the Ganges delta. Cholera arrived in Britain in 1832. The cholera patient can be saved by the infusion of large amounts of water and electrolytes. But they did not know that then. The bacterium that causes cholera was d

The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters  by Rose George, Metropolitan Books, 2009.  Dalit Scavengers In India, there is still widespread discrimination against the Dalits (previously called the Untouchables). There are subdivisions of Dalits: (a) Tanners of animals, (b) Burners of corpses, (ccc) Sweepers (manual scavengers). It is only sweepers who are the scavengers of excrement. It is estimated that there are 400 thousand to 1.2 million

Picking Up: On the Streets and Behind the Trucks with the Sanitation Workers of New York City  by Robin Nagle, Farrar, Straus and Giroux,...