The Great Stench or the fool's argument.

The eight weeks of the "Great Stench" in London in June-July 1858 had a lasting effect on the city. Today's embankments were planned then, and the huge oval brick sewers of London were designed and constructed as a direct result of the stench. The event occurred before the bacteriological era, when fear of cholera caused by a miasma gripped the city. This article, through quotations from The Times, Punch, and the medical press, traces the various reactions to the stink and explores the reasons why there wasn't more of a public reaction to the plague threat.