10 Forgotten Historical Figures You Didn't Know Changed Your Life

Civilized society is driven towards water. Look at early civilizations and you will usually notice a large body of water nearby. Flood plains provide valuable nutrients, enabling the mass cultivation of agricultural products.

There is of course another reason we tend to flock towards rivers and lakes: man has to drink.

In 1804 Robert Thom, a civil engineer, devised the first city-wide water treatment plant in Paisley, Scotland. The plant filtered water through sand and gravel to provide clean drinking water for the town.

As filtration systems designed or influenced by Thom became more prevalent throughout Scotland and the rest of the UK, it became obvious there was a link between clean drinking water and a reduction in diseases such as cholera and typhoid. As a result the British government made municipal water filtration mandatory in 1852.

Variations on Thom's slow sand filter method, which is clean, cheap and sustainable, are still used today in much of the UK.

Although improvements would be made to Thom's system, his method marks the first time a major conglomeration of humans could expect clean water, cutting the rate of illness exponentially.