It’s really only been not much more than a century since “great stinks” caused tremendous disruptions of daily life across major world cities. Lack of sufficient public sanitation, open sewers, abattoirs, and a host of other elements of those times would combine with seasonal weather patterns and other phenomena to produce a level of stench that could not only cause people to alter the activities, they could – and in some cases did – literally bring the activities of governments to a halt.
For those unfamiliar with the Great Stink of 1858, it was essentially the “perfect storm” of a human (and other) waste polluted Thames River combining with a blisteringly hot July and August to produce an incapacitating stench throughout the city of London. Londoners rarely left their homes in order to avoid the wretch-inducing smell. Basic elements of civic government came to a near stand-still. And people at all levels of society called for something to be done.