Dirt #x13; obsessively avoided, often misunderstood, but paradoxically also an indicator of #x18;civilisation#x19; (through production of waste), and a near-magical source of renewable life and medical discovery. History is rich with progressive victories over dirt, from the aqueducts and sewers of the Roman Empire to Sir Joseph Bazalgette#x19;s triumphant #x18;Main Drainage of London#x19; in the mid-nineteenth century, which still functions today. Yet our relationship with dirt is complex and ambivalent. Dirt is waste, excrement, rubbish #x13; but what then is soil? Is cleanliness next to godliness #x13; or sterility? And in a throwaway society, does the battle against dirt depend on an exploited and half-seen underclass of cleaners? Published to coincide with a major new exhibition at the Wellcome Collection in London in March 2011, and lavishly illustrated with images from the Wellcome#x19;s archives, this provocative book features specially commissioned essays and a short graphic novel section on the significance and implications of dirt from the microbial level through to the environmental.