City That Was

About this book

This 1911 history of the public health revolution that transformed New York City in the nineteenth century is also about every city and town of the world and the sanitary challenges that each encountered. Stephen Smith (1823-1922) was an American surgeon and a pioneer in public health. “The story of a great life-saving social revolution, the mightiest in the nineteenth century and one of the most momentous in the history of civilization, is told here for the first time. It is told from the standpoint of the transformation of the City of New York, by a chief actor in the event.” Chapter four, New York The Unclean, is the heart of this work. ( Publisher's Note and David Wales)