{"id":872,"date":"2009-09-08T08:52:16","date_gmt":"2009-09-08T12:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=872"},"modified":"2010-09-27T14:12:29","modified_gmt":"2010-09-27T18:12:29","slug":"john-snow-and-the-start-of-modern-epidemiology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2009\/09\/08\/john-snow-and-the-start-of-modern-epidemiology\/","title":{"rendered":"John Snow and the start of modern epidemiology"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Another &#8220;on this date&#8221; entry for you: in 1854, John Snow persuaded the local authorities in a London borough to remove the handle from a water pump at the centre of a cholera outbreak. The move was successful, and the death rate dropped immediately. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/thisdayintech\/2009\/09\/0908london-cholera-pump\/\" target=\"_blank\">Randy Alfred<\/a> has the story:<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/BroadSt_cholera_map.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/BroadSt_cholera_map-480x290.jpg\" alt=\"BroadSt_cholera_map\" title=\"BroadSt_cholera_map\" width=\"480\" height=\"290\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-873\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/BroadSt_cholera_map-480x290.jpg 480w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/BroadSt_cholera_map-150x90.jpg 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/BroadSt_cholera_map.jpg 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Physician John Snow convinces a London local council to remove the handle from a pump in Soho. A deadly cholera epidemic in the neighborhood comes to an end immediately, though perhaps serendipitously. Snow maps the outbreak to prove his point . . . and launches modern epidemiology.<\/p>\n<p>The Soho neighborhood was not then filled with galleries, clubs, restaurants and other fine urban diversions. Some of it was an unsanitary slum where centuries-old cesspits sat chockablock with the wells that provided drinking water to a crowded populace.<\/p>\n<p>Asiatic cholera had stricken Britain in successive waves since 1831. Snow, an obstetrician who pioneered the use of anesthesia in Britain, published On the Mode of Communication of Cholera in 1849. His hypothesis (and supporting data) held that the scourge was caused by sewage pollution in drinking water and \u201calways commences with disturbances of the functions of the alimentary canal.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Another &#8220;on this date&#8221; entry for you: in 1854, John Snow persuaded the local authorities in a London borough to remove the handle from a water pump at the centre of a cholera outbreak. The move was successful, and the death rate dropped immediately. Randy Alfred has the story: Physician John Snow convinces a London [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,66],"tags":[624,243,244],"class_list":["post-872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-health-science","tag-maps","tag-medicine","tag-publichealth"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-e4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=872"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5544,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872\/revisions\/5544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}