Sanitation - Definition and Overview

Sanitation is a term for the hygienic disposal or recycling of waste materials, particularly human excrement. Sanitation is an important public health measure which is essential for the prevention of disease.

Topics

• Toilets and the invention of the water closet
• sewers and sewage treatment
• cesspits
• the germ theory of disease (and its predecessor, the miasma theory of disease)
• Dr. John Snow and the prevention of cholera in Soho

See also

• Wiktionary definition of sanitation
• Copenhagen Consensus