ABSTRACT
By the end of the 1870s Crookes had arrived socially. He was elected a member of the intellectually prestigious Athenaeum Club on the recommendation of his patron, George Stokes, and, to his surprise and delight, his water-analysis rival, Edward Frankland. After years of being considered a scientific outsider because of his commercial interests and lack of a university education, Crookes was a comfortable member of the scientific and business worlds.2 The 1870s were the period in which British chemists became professionalized and in which matters of health and hygiene were in the forefront of public debate. The disposal of human sewage, the purity of drinking water, the cleansing or rivers and waterways, and the policing and prevention of food and drug adulteration were matters of deep public concern. Crookes had something to say on each of these issues and was directly involved in most of them either as editor of Chemical News or as a professional chemical consultant.
