Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
marshes.
15
Thus, the belief was that urban excess mortality was due to the cumu-
lative effects of a contaminated ground saturated with putrefying waste and of the
human and animal density. Indeed, discoveries by Priestley and Lavoisier showed
that respiration permanently tainted the air by consuming oxygen and producing
CO
2
(then called phlogisticated air) in a process characteristic of combustion.
16
These analyses led the medical establishment and, in large part, the scienti
c,
political and intellectual communities to establish new requirements to correct and
rectify the deleterious conditions of these cities.
17
They recommended airing cities
and decreasing their putrefaction through improved ground covering, better man-
agement of human and urban excreta, universalized sweeping and cleaning, and
improved distribution of these services. These types of projects were developed
throughout the 19th century.
7.3.2 Urbanization, Industrialization and Recycling
Both industrialization and urbanization separately raised the issue of food resources
and rawmaterials required for industrial use. Demographic growth, the increase in the
number of urbanites, required a concurrent increase in agricultural production.
According to future agronomists, one way this could be achieved was by improving
yields through improved fertilization of croplands. By the late 18th century, a
shortage in farm manure prevailed, leading to a search for other fertilizing materials.
Indeed, the numerous studies on putrefaction during the 18th century and the iden-
ti
cation of the great material cycles by early chemistry showed that death was critical
to life and that human and animal excreta, as well as food residues, could be used as
fertilizers.
18
As these wastes were most concentrated in cities, it was there that mud
from streets, drainage of pit privies, beef blood, old shoes, indeed any organic waste
was collected. Throughout Europe and North America, scientists and intellectuals
stressed the need for cities to return their food as fertilizer to the countryside.
Recovering those
19
was the only way to
“
materials which the cities owe to the earth
”
ensure both salubrity (through an ef
cient collection of organic materials scattered
throughout cities) and food production. Throughout the 19th century, the chemists
Jean-Baptiste Dumas, Jean-Baptiste Boussingault, Justus von Liebig, Alexander
M
ller (among others), the lawyer and social reformer Edwin Chadwick, engineers
like Adolphe-Auguste Mille, all promoted human and urban fertilizers.
20
Later, even
public
ü
gures addressed the issue, such as Victor Hugo in Les Mis
é
rables.
15
Baumes (
1789
).
16
Priestley (
1774
) and Lavoisier (
1782
).
17
Fortier (
1975
).
18
Wines (
1985
) and Tarr (
1996
).
19
Dumas (
1866
1867
).
20
von Liebig (
1862
), Mu
̈
ller (
1860
), Chadwick (
1842
) and Paulet (
1853
). See also: M
å
rald
(
2002
), Goddard (
1996
) and Hamlin (
2007
).
-
