4 ms·
This brings to mind New York City's horse-manure health crisis in the late 1800's (even though that crisis wasn't directly comparable to this one). Back then,
by cs702 14y ago
This brings to mind New York City's horse-manure health crisis in the late 1800's (even though that crisis wasn't directly comparable to this one). Back then, according to the New York Times, there were up to 200,000 horses living in the city, each one generating between up to 30 pounds of manure a day, for a total of up to 6 million pounds of fresh horseshit every day. It just piled up, attracting huge numbers of flies and posing a serious challenge to the city's Sanitation Department. The whole city reeked of it.[1]
[1] http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/09/when-horses-posed-a-public-health-hazard/ http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/09/when-horses-pos...
- cstross 14y agoIt's also worth noting the correlation between the reduction in urban horses and the reduction in human cases of tuberculosis. TB killed up to 25% of the urban poor in the late 19th century; infective vectors included infected milk (from bovine infection reservoirs), poor living conditions that enforced proximity to TB sufferers, and proximity to TB-infected livestock -- of which horses would have been the main reservoir in urban areas.