In 1911 industrial and environmental chemist Ellen Henrietta (Swallow) Richards published Conservation by Sanitation: Air and Water Supply; Disposal of Waste [Including a Laboratory Guide for Sanitary Engineers], a work which was particularly concerned with the management of water pollution and its effect on human health.
On the page, it looked like a technical manual. In spirit, it was something different. She was tracing a connection between chemistry and care, showing that the health of a community lived in its rivers, its air, its waste streams as much as in its hospitals.
Panorama of a Stream's Pollution, frontispiece of Richards' book
Richards treated polluted water as illness, clean air as a form of medicine, and engineering as a way of restoring balance. In her work, science transcends the pursuit of knowledge to become a craft. That way of thinking didn’t get the attention it deserved, partly because we tend to celebrate invention more than maintenance. But it suggests a thread that runs quietly through history: the idea that technologies are at their most powerful when they heal.
A century later, artificial intelligence and cultural technologies are forcing similar questions. We often frame them in terms of efficiency, scale, or disruption. Yet the deeper current—what ultimately determines their impact—may be whether they take part in this lineage of healing. Do they mend trust where it’s eroded? Do they regenerate the systems they draw from? Do they contribute to balance rather than fracture?
Richards arguably didn’t set out to invent the future. But she was paying attention to the damage in front of her and built tools that helped restore what was broken. That approach may be less glamorous than bold predictions, but it endures. It reveals a hidden tradition of innovation: progress as the slow, careful work of making things whole again.