section_path: Social effects/Standards of living/Water and sanitation
section_name: Water and sanitation
paragraph_text: Water and sanitation
  
  Pre-industrial water supply relied on gravity systems, and pumping of water was done by water wheels. Pipes were typically made of wood. Steam-powered pumps and iron pipes allowed the widespread piping of water to horse watering troughs and households.
  
  Engels' book describes how untreated sewage created awful odours and turned the rivers green in industrial cities. In 1854 John Snow traced a cholera outbreak in Soho in London to fecal contamination of a public water well by a home cesspit. Snow's findings that cholera could be spread by contaminated water took some years to be accepted, but his work led to fundamental changes in the design of public water and waste systems.