ABSTRACT
Edwin Chadwick demonstrated the relationship between unsanitary conditions, defective drainage, overcrowded housing and disease. As a result of epidemics such as the Black Death, England passed the Urban Sanitary Act of 1388 which forbade throwing filth and garbage in ditches, rivers, or waterways. Seepage and overflow contaminated water supplies and epidemics killing thousands in the Middle Ages, mostly in towns and cities of Western Europe. Hydraulic engineers were called upon to create water courses for commerce as well. In the eastern United States, the New York City water supply is a typical example of the need for extensive hydraulic engineering, matching, and surpassing that of antiquity, with 40 kilometers of bored log mains that supplied 2.6 million liters to 2,000 homes in the early 1800s. During the 17th to the early 19th centuries, a number of improvements in water supply were made, most of these related to improvements in filtration to remove the turbidity of waters.
