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John Snow (15 March 1813 – 16 June 1858 [1]) was an English physician and a leader in the development of anaesthesia and medical hygiene.He is considered one of the founders of modern epidemiology and early germ theory, in part because of his work in tracing the source of a cholera outbreak in London's Soho, which he identified as a particular public water pump.
In contrast, the germ theory held that the principal cause of cholera was a germ cell that had not yet been identified. Snow theorised that this unknown germ was transmitted from person to person by individuals ingesting water. John Simon, a pathologist and the lead medical officer for London, labelled Snow's germ theory as "peculiar". [6]
Even though the germ theory had not been established yet, he felt the outbreaks were not caused by "bad air" infecting blood, but by something entering a person's gut. Snow determined that inhaling "bad air" would not result in intestinal disease. [32] Replica of the Broad Street pump across from the John Snow Pub
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A representation by Robert Seymour of the cholera epidemic depicts the spread of the disease in the form of poisonous air.. The miasma theory was the predominant theory of disease transmission before the germ theory took hold towards the end of the 19th century; it is no longer accepted as a correct explanation for disease by the scientific community.
Although the connection between germ and disease was proposed quite early, it was not until the late 1800s that the germ theory was generally accepted. The miasmatic theory was challenged by John Snow, suggesting that there was some means by which the disease was spread via a poison or morbid material (orig: materies morbi) in the water. [33]
The Soho outbreak in London in 1854 ended after the physician John Snow identified a neighborhood Broad Street pump as contaminated and convinced officials to remove its handle. [13] Snow believed that germ-contaminated water was the source of cholera, rather than particles in the air (referred to as "miasmata"). His study proved contaminated ...
The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic – and How it Changed Science, Cities and the Modern World is a book by Steven Berlin Johnson in which he describes the most intense outbreak of cholera in Victorian London and centers on John Snow and Henry Whitehead. [1] It was released on 19 October 2006 through Riverhead.