The Medical Detective: John Snow and the Mystery of Cholera
Year: 2006
Type: article
Abstract: J ohn Snow is perhaps the only doctor ever to be considered the founder of two medical disciplines: epidemiology and anaesthesiology. An early believer in the theory of contagion, he grasped the opportunity of a peculiarity in the water supply in London to gather quantitative evidence supporting his theory that cholera was transmitted by polluted water.
In 1853-4, when a cholera pandemic hit London, one of the two major water supply firms, the Lambeth Company, had moved its Thames intakes upriver, above the tidal (and therefore sewage) reach. Snow showed that most of the cholera deaths occurred …
Source: BMJ
Author: Alfredo Morabia
Institution: City University of New York
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1970062027