ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the state of water analysis in the early 1850s, the London water controversy of 1850-1852, the increasing irrelevancy of biology in water-and-sewage matters, and the beginnings of a nihilistic attitude in matters of water quality during the late 1850s and early 1860s. The 1850 report on the water supply of Leicester by Alfred Swaine Taylor and Arthur Aiken illustrates what happened when mineral water analysis was applied to potable waters. The application of mineral water chemistry to sanitary science made water analysis a confused business for decades. The London water controversy of 1850-1852 was a struggle for the control of the water supply, pitting rival reform groups against one another and against the eight existing water companies, whose division of the market had rightly earned them the title of “the water monopoly.” Organisms excreted and died, repolluting the water with decomposing substances.
