A closer look
Imagine walking through London in the 1800s, where the fog wasn’t mist but choking soot and coal smoke. Breathing was an ordeal, and inventors knew lungs needed rescuing. So they dreamt up early filters—strange contraptions of wool, charcoal, and even sponges—that people pressed to their faces just to gulp clean air. These contraptions were ancestors of modern gas masks, born not from war but from daily survival in an urban smog chamber. In a city built on smoke-belching industry, it was the inventors of fresh breaths who fought a quieter battle.
