Christopher Hamlin

• 1. Duties, Disputes and Deceptions: Rivers and British Society, 1850-1900 2. Routes to Reputation: Science in an Adversary Context 3. The Antithesis of Life: Decomposition in Victorian Science and Medicine 4. Biological Purification, 1850-1880 5. From Sensibility to Nihilism: Water Quality and Self-Purification, 1850-1860 6. The Triumph of Nihilism, 1860-68 7. The Radicalization of a Water Scientist: Edward Frankland and the London Water Controversy, 1866-69 8. Politics and Credibility: Frankland and Self Purification, 1868-1881 9. Biology Acquires a Constituency I: Organisms and the Politics of Water Supply 10. Biology Acquires a Constituency II: Organisms and the Politics of Sewage Treatment Conclusion: Society, Science and Self-Purification Appendix A: Samples of Water Analyses, 1828-72 Appendix B: Biographical Digest of Some Important but not well-known figures in the history of river self-purification