Who is credited for the invention of the earliest known septic system, a method of waste disposal?

By the Victorian period, cesspits in use for waste disposal were causing huge outbreaks of Cholera and other deadly diseases. This led to the invention of the very first septic tank, designed by the French inventor Jean-Louis Mouras in 1860, who believed that strong sewage before discharging it would be better than allowing it to seep into the surrounding land straight way.

Mouras combined the Ancient Greek concept of the flush toilet, using clay pipes to transport the wastewater out of his house, with the more "modern" concept of cesspools, which collected waste and were manually emptied from time to time. However, Mouras added an extra feature that he called the "fousse Mouras" (translated Mouras pit), a sealed tank that would hold the wastewater, allowing overflow to make its way to the cesspool.

After ten years of use with no issue, Mouras was curious to see what was going on inside the tank. When he cracked the lid and peered inside, he was surprised to find the tank nearly empty, with just a thin layer of scum remaining. In the years, that followed, he enlisted the help of a scientist, Abbe Moigno, to develop a prototype. In 1881, Mouras patented the Mouras Automatic Scavenger, and within two years, his design had made its way to the United States, where it did not take long for the invention to proliferate.