Digital ACT Reading Practice Question #1255

The following passage is adapted from a historical analysis of urban infrastructure: "The construction of London's subterranean sewer network in the 1860s, masterminded by chief engineer Joseph Bazalgette, was initiated in the wake of the 'Great Stink' of 1858, when the Thames had become an open cesspool threatening the functioning of Parliament. Traditional public health officials attributed cholera outbreaks to 'miasma'—noxious airborne vapors emanating from decaying matter. Although Bazalgette operated under this erroneous miasmatic premise, his infrastructure inadvertently addressed the true waterborne etiology of the disease by intercepting effluent before it contaminated drinking water reservoirs." According to the passage, Bazalgette's sewer system succeeded in mitigating cholera primarily because: