How about the inventor of the vivid and highly popular shade of green that was a silent but deadly killer in Victorian home decorating? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheele%27s_Green
Yeah, but where did all the shit go? Also, sanitation is possibly one of the biggest facilitators of population density, leading to enlarged cities, towns, centralising economy, over-population, increased life expectancy, industrial revolutions and so much of what has become this modern world. The flush toilet has more influence than steam power or microchips or anything else we might consider revolutionary. Furthermore, separating people from their waste contributes to the utter disregard for despoiling the oceans and creating landfills, at a psychological level. And then, it's a work of fiction with, I suspect, a somewhat playful take on such things. Poor Thomas Crapper became synonymous with his field of interest, which unfortunately leads to sniggering at the back. Why not put a twist on his contribution to the rapid evolution of our species? If you disagree with any of these points, all I can do is cite the unanswerable dictum that it's "pure true". (I agree entirely that we benefit immeasurably from his inquisitiveness. I certainly wouldn't fancy digging holes in the ground out the back)
Hey, fish were doing that long before we came along, we just followed their lead! Chickens and many other animals like to shit where they eat, but we at least discovered the utility of putting it elsewhere. And of course nothing like modern ecology existed then, They were struggling little knots of sweating, unhealthy humanity desperately trying to cling to life. They had no idea the wilderness would fill up with their crap and their trash—up to a certain point it made perfect sense. The unspoiled wilderness seemed like an inexhaustible resource, as everything did. But we gradually developed the understanding that there's only a limited amount of world left, and from that the idea of ecological conservation, which is a very recent one. Until somebody develops transporter capabilities so we can send it all straight into the sun or a black hole or something, there doesn't seem to be a better alternative that's feasible to implement. Really we're still desperate sweating hominids trying to survive, we've just forgotten it in the luxury of modern living, where we're so walled off from nature we've forgotten its savagery and squalor. In such an environment it's easy to sit and theorize about utopias where our crap magically disappears, but until the technology is created to make it happen, we continue to shit as copiously as ever, and it has to go somewhere. I for one say God Bless Thomas Crapper! I salute him each time I raise or lower the toilet seat! (Cue stirring music punctuated with intermittent farting sounds and splashes, maybe a courtesy flush now and then)
You have an amazing guy named Joseph William Bazalgette, Chief Engineer of the Metropolitan Board of Works, to thank for handling this. The London sewers were completed mid-1870s and most of the system is still in use today.
