London's Cholera Epidemic
London’s Cholera Epidemic
As explained in The Ghost Map by Steve Johnson, during the 1850’s in London, there was a devastating cholera epidemic. At the time no one really knew what cholera was. All anyone was able to do was panic and make up theories. What they did know about cholera was just what they witnessed. Citizens would see their loved ones have severe cases of almost clear diarrhea with white specks, referred to as rice stool, and then die within days or even hours. John Snow and Henry Whitehead came along to end the crisis using a different approach. They looked at the facts and collected evidence through interviews and surveys of the town. John Snow and Henry Whitehead’s scientific approach to investigating cholera helped them to end the epidemic in London during the 1850’s. The most popular theory to how cholera spread amongst the population was the miasma theory. The miasma theory was the idea that the disease was in the air. It was believed that people could get cholera by being exposed to the atmosphere in which the disease contaminated. In the 1850’s, London had an unbelievable stench and most thought that the smell was the disease. The miasma theory has been around forever. The theory was “as much a matter of instinct as it was intellectual tradition.” (Johnson,127) It sometimes made sense. Cholera is accumulated by ingesting the bacteria which lives in waste. The stench was coming from the lack of or poor sewer systems so the smell and the disease were coming from the same place. Some people believed that who got cholera was God’s will. This is what Henry Whitehead, the reverend who eventually would help prove the waterborne theory, initially thought. London’s citizens were getting cholera from one source: the water pump on Broad Street. John Snow looked at the facts and tried to figure out where cholera came from instead of just trying to prove the miasma theory. Snow noticed by looking at William Farr’s death tolls that the
As explained in The Ghost Map by Steve Johnson, during the 1850’s in London, there was a devastating cholera epidemic. At the time no one really knew what cholera was. All anyone was able to do was panic and make up theories. What they did know about cholera was just what they witnessed. Citizens would see their loved ones have severe cases of almost clear diarrhea with white specks, referred to as rice stool, and then die within days or even hours. John Snow and Henry Whitehead came along to end the crisis using a different approach. They looked at the facts and collected evidence through interviews and surveys of the town. John Snow and Henry Whitehead’s scientific approach to investigating cholera helped them to end the epidemic in London during the 1850’s. The most popular theory to how cholera spread amongst the population was the miasma theory. The miasma theory was the idea that the disease was in the air. It was believed that people could get cholera by being exposed to the atmosphere in which the disease contaminated. In the 1850’s, London had an unbelievable stench and most thought that the smell was the disease. The miasma theory has been around forever. The theory was “as much a matter of instinct as it was intellectual tradition.” (Johnson,127) It sometimes made sense. Cholera is accumulated by ingesting the bacteria which lives in waste. The stench was coming from the lack of or poor sewer systems so the smell and the disease were coming from the same place. Some people believed that who got cholera was God’s will. This is what Henry Whitehead, the reverend who eventually would help prove the waterborne theory, initially thought. London’s citizens were getting cholera from one source: the water pump on Broad Street. John Snow looked at the facts and tried to figure out where cholera came from instead of just trying to prove the miasma theory. Snow noticed by looking at William Farr’s death tolls that the