A RIVER RUNS PUTRID: A SUMMER OF FILTH, 1858

The city of London breathed in the heat of summer, 1858. But it was not merely the sun that baked the metropolis. An even more unpleasant force infested its very heart: the River Thames. Years of industrial effluents had transformed London's lifeblood into a nauseating odor. The stench was all-consuming, a miasma that clung to every cobblestone and

On a blustery January in that fateful year, disaster unfolded Boston. A massive tank filled with sticky, sweet molasses gave way sending a torrent of the thick liquid flowing through the streets. The power was catastrophic, crushing buildings and entombing citizens in a gooey mass. Scores of people were killed, and many more were wounded. Boston