Download or read book John Snow and the Cholera Epidemic of 1854 written by and published by . This book was released on 2020-04-30 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes excerpts of contemporary accounts *Includes a bibliography for further reading Plague and pestilence have both fascinated and terrified humanity from the very beginning. Societies and individuals have struggled to make sense of them, and more importantly they've often struggled to avoid them. Before the scientific age, people had no knowledge of the microbiological agents - unseen bacteria and viruses - which afflicted them, and thus the maladies were often ascribed to wrathful supernatural forces. Even when advances in knowledge posited natural causes for epidemics and pandemics, medicine struggled to deal with them, and for hundreds of years religion continued to work hand-in-hand with medicine. Inevitably, that meant physicians tried a variety of practices to cure the sick, and many of them seem quite odd by modern standards. By the time Rome was on the rise, physicians understood that contagions arose and spread, but according to Galen, Hippocrates, and other Greco-Roman authorities, pestilence was caused by miasma, foul air produced by the decomposition of organic matter. Though modern scientists have since been able to disprove this, on the face of it there was some logic to the idea. Physicians and philosophers (they were very often the same, Galen being an example) noticed that disease arose in areas of poor sanitation, where filth and rotting matter was prevalent and not disposed of, and the basic measures to prevent disease was obvious to them. In the case of cholera, once among the most dreaded diseases, a breakthrough in Victorian England occurred in the mid-19th century during one of several epidemics to assault the island. In that instance, an unassuming physician named John Snow was able to trace the environmental component in which cholera was carried. He accomplished this in large part through a painstaking map cross-referencing location and specific cases of infection within a small area of London. Eventually, he narrowed the source down to a single manual water pump in the midst of the poverty-stricken neighborhood of Soho. An extensive early education provided by the first outbreak sent him on a contrarian's path in analyzing the dreaded disease. He was not blessed with the pedigree of an aristocratic family or the attendant gifts required for a young man of social substance to seek a high-level formal education. Nevertheless, he rose to be recognized not only as the world's leading anesthetist, but also as the practitioner who proved that the cholera outbreaks in Britain were the result of polluted water. Today, he is addressed as the "Father of Epidemiology," defined by Webster as a "medical science that deals with the incidence, distribution, and control of disease in a population." At the time, however, in the face of resistance launched by more powerful and pedigreed members of the medical profession, Snow was rewarded with criticism for not successfully revealing the entirety of the disease's inner mechanics. It was only over the course of several decades that Snow was able to persuade the medical community at large of the disease's source, and the British successfully established policies that helped prevent future outbreaks. Ironically, Snow eventually gained membership in Britain's high circle of elite medical practitioners, but it was not his work on cholera that initially propelled him to global fame. Ultimately, it was his pioneering work in the new field of anesthesiology, largely unknown to Britain, that earned the applause of contemporaries. John Snow and the Cholera Epidemic of 1854: The History of the Outbreak and Its Impact on Public Health Measures examines the deadly outbreak and Snow's groundbreaking findings. Along with pictures depicting important people, places, and events, you will learn about the cholera outbreak like never before.
Download or read book On the Mode of Communication of Cholera written by John Snow and published by . This book was released on 1849 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book John Snow and the Cholera Epidemic of 1854 written by and published by . This book was released on 2020-04-30 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes excerpts of contemporary accounts *Includes a bibliography for further reading Plague and pestilence have both fascinated and terrified humanity from the very beginning. Societies and individuals have struggled to make sense of them, and more importantly they've often struggled to avoid them. Before the scientific age, people had no knowledge of the microbiological agents - unseen bacteria and viruses - which afflicted them, and thus the maladies were often ascribed to wrathful supernatural forces. Even when advances in knowledge posited natural causes for epidemics and pandemics, medicine struggled to deal with them, and for hundreds of years religion continued to work hand-in-hand with medicine. Inevitably, that meant physicians tried a variety of practices to cure the sick, and many of them seem quite odd by modern standards. By the time Rome was on the rise, physicians understood that contagions arose and spread, but according to Galen, Hippocrates, and other Greco-Roman authorities, pestilence was caused by miasma, foul air produced by the decomposition of organic matter. Though modern scientists have since been able to disprove this, on the face of it there was some logic to the idea. Physicians and philosophers (they were very often the same, Galen being an example) noticed that disease arose in areas of poor sanitation, where filth and rotting matter was prevalent and not disposed of, and the basic measures to prevent disease was obvious to them. In the case of cholera, once among the most dreaded diseases, a breakthrough in Victorian England occurred in the mid-19th century during one of several epidemics to assault the island. In that instance, an unassuming physician named John Snow was able to trace the environmental component in which cholera was carried. He accomplished this in large part through a painstaking map cross-referencing location and specific cases of infection within a small area of London. Eventually, he narrowed the source down to a single manual water pump in the midst of the poverty-stricken neighborhood of Soho. An extensive early education provided by the first outbreak sent him on a contrarian's path in analyzing the dreaded disease. He was not blessed with the pedigree of an aristocratic family or the attendant gifts required for a young man of social substance to seek a high-level formal education. Nevertheless, he rose to be recognized not only as the world's leading anesthetist, but also as the practitioner who proved that the cholera outbreaks in Britain were the result of polluted water. Today, he is addressed as the "Father of Epidemiology," defined by Webster as a "medical science that deals with the incidence, distribution, and control of disease in a population." At the time, however, in the face of resistance launched by more powerful and pedigreed members of the medical profession, Snow was rewarded with criticism for not successfully revealing the entirety of the disease's inner mechanics. It was only over the course of several decades that Snow was able to persuade the medical community at large of the disease's source, and the British successfully established policies that helped prevent future outbreaks. Ironically, Snow eventually gained membership in Britain's high circle of elite medical practitioners, but it was not his work on cholera that initially propelled him to global fame. Ultimately, it was his pioneering work in the new field of anesthesiology, largely unknown to Britain, that earned the applause of contemporaries. John Snow and the Cholera Epidemic of 1854: The History of the Outbreak and Its Impact on Public Health Measures examines the deadly outbreak and Snow's groundbreaking findings. Along with pictures depicting important people, places, and events, you will learn about the cholera outbreak like never before.
Download or read book The Ghost Map written by Steven Johnson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "It is the summer of 1854. Cholera has seized London with unprecedented intensity. A metropolis of more than 2 million people, London is just emerging as one of the first modern cities in the world. But lacking the infrastructure necessary to support its dense population - garbage removal, clean water, sewers - the city has become the perfect breeding ground for a terrifying disease that no one knows how to cure." "As their neighbors begin dying, two men are spurred to action: the Reverend Henry Whitehead, whose faith in a benevolent God is shaken by the seemingly random nature of the victims, and Dr. John Snow, whose ideas about contagion have been dismissed by the scientific community, but who is convinced that he knows how the disease is being transmitted. The Ghost Map chronicles the outbreak's spread and the desperate efforts to put an end to the epidemic - and solve the most pressing medical riddle of the age."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Cholera Chloroform and the Science of Medicine written by Peter Vinten-Johansen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2003-05-01 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The product of six years of collaborative research, this fine biography offers new interpretations of a pioneering figure in anesthesiology, epidemiology, medical cartography, and public health. It modifies the conventional rags to riches portrait of John Snow by synthesizing fresh information about his early life from archival research and recent studies. It explores the intellectual roots of his commitments to vegetarianism, temperance, and pure drinking water, first developed when he was a medical apprentice and assistant in the north of England. The authors argue that all of Snow's later contributions are traceable to the medical paradigm he imbibed as a medical student in London and put into practice early in his career as a clinician: that medicine as a science required the incorporation of recent developments in its collateral sciences--chiefly anatomy, chemistry, and physiology--in order to understand the causes of disease. Snow's theoretical breakthroughs in anesthesia were extensions of his experimental research in respiratory physiology and the properties of inhaled gases. Shortly thereafter, his understanding of gas laws led him to reject miasmatic explanations for the spread of cholera, and to develop an alternative theory in consonance with what was then known about chemistry and the physiology of digestion. Using all of Snow's writings, the authors follow him when working in his home laboratory, visiting patients throughout London, attending medical society meetings, and conducting studies during the cholera epidemics of 1849 and 1854. The result is a book that demythologizes some overly heroic views of Snow by providing a fairer measure of his actual contributions. It will have an impact not only on the understanding of the man but also on the history of epidemiology and medical science.
Download or read book Cholera what is It and how to Prevent it written by Edwin Lankester and published by . This book was released on 1866 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Medical Detective written by Sandra Hempel and published by Granta Books. This book was released on 2014-03-06 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1831, an unknown, horrifying and deadly disease from Asia swept across Continental Europe, killing millions in its path and throwing the medical profession into confusion. Cholera is a killer with little respect for class or wealth. When it arrived in Britain, its repercussions rocked Victorian England - from the filthy lanes of the Sunderland quayside and the squalid streets of Soho, to the great centres of power: the Privy Council, Whitehall and the Royal Medical Colleges. One man - alone and unrecognized - uncovered the truth behind the pandemic and laid the foundations for the modern scientific investigation of today's fatal plagues. John Snow was a reclusive doctor, without money or social position, who had the genius to look beyond the conventional wisdom of his day and work out that cholera was spread through drinking water. The book draws extensively on nineteenth-century medical, political and personal records in order to describe what is both an important breakthrough for medical science and also a dramatic story with a cast of colourful characters, from the heroic to the frighteningly incompetent. The book is also full of fascinating diversions into aspects of medical and social history, from Snow's tending of Queen Victoria in childbirth, to the Dutch microbiologist Leeuwenhoek's breeding of lice in his socks, and from Dickensian children's farms to riotous nineteenth-century anaesthesia parties.
Download or read book Mapping the Victorian Social Body written by Pamela K. Gilbert and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2004-02-12 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tracing the development of cholera mapping from the early sanitary period to the later "medical" period of which John Snow's work was a key example, the book explores how maps of cholera outbreaks, residents' responses to those maps, and the novels of Charles Dickens, who drew heavily on this material, contributed to an emerging vision of London as a metropolis. The book then turns to India, the metropole's colonial other and the perceived source of the disease. In India, the book argues, imperial politics took cholera mapping in a wholly different direction and contributed to Britons' perceptions of Indian space as quite different from that of home.
Download or read book Cholera Chloroform and the Science of Medicine written by Peter Vinten-Johansen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2003-05-01 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The product of six years of collaborative research, this fine biography offers new interpretations of a pioneering figure in anesthesiology, epidemiology, medical cartography, and public health. It modifies the conventional rags to riches portrait of John Snow by synthesizing fresh information about his early life from archival research and recent studies. It explores the intellectual roots of his commitments to vegetarianism, temperance, and pure drinking water, first developed when he was a medical apprentice and assistant in the north of England. The authors argue that all of Snow's later contributions are traceable to the medical paradigm he imbibed as a medical student in London and put into practice early in his career as a clinician: that medicine as a science required the incorporation of recent developments in its collateral sciences--chiefly anatomy, chemistry, and physiology--in order to understand the causes of disease. Snow's theoretical breakthroughs in anesthesia were extensions of his experimental research in respiratory physiology and the properties of inhaled gases. Shortly thereafter, his understanding of gas laws led him to reject miasmatic explanations for the spread of cholera, and to develop an alternative theory in consonance with what was then known about chemistry and the physiology of digestion. Using all of Snow's writings, the authors follow him when working in his home laboratory, visiting patients throughout London, attending medical society meetings, and conducting studies during the cholera epidemics of 1849 and 1854. The result is a book that demythologizes some overly heroic views of Snow by providing a fairer measure of his actual contributions. It will have an impact not only on the understanding of the man but also on the history of epidemiology and medical science.
Download or read book Case Studies in Public Health written by Theodore H. Tulchinsky and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2018-03-12 with total page 605 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Case Studies in Public Health contains selected case studies of some of the most important and influential moments in medicine and epidemiology. The cases chosen for this collection represent a wide array of public health issues that go into the makeup of what can be termed the New Public Health (NPH), which includes traditional public health, such as sanitation, hygiene and infectious disease control, but widens its perspective to include the organization, financing and quality of health care services in a much broader sense. Each case study is presented in a systematic fashion to facilitate learning, with the case, background, current relevance, economic issues, ethical issues, conclusions, recommendation and references discussed for each case. The book is a valuable resource for advanced students and researchers with specialized knowledge who need further information on the general background and history of public health and important scientific discoveries within the field. It is an ideal resource for students in public health, epidemiology, medicine, anthropology, and sociology, and for those interested in how to apply lessons from the past to present and future research. Explores the history of public health through important scientific events and flashpoints Presents case studies in a clear, direct style that is easy to follow Uses a systematic approach to help learn lessons from the past and apply them to the present
Download or read book The Great Trouble written by Deborah Hopkinson and published by Knopf Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2013-09-10 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The suspenseful tale of two courageous kids and one inquisitive scientist who teamed up to stop an epidemic. “A delightful combination of race-against-the-clock medical mystery and outwit-the-bad-guys adventure.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred Eel has troubles of his own: As an orphan and a “mudlark,” he spends his days in the filthy River Thames, searching for bits of things to sell. He’s being hunted by Fisheye Bill Tyler, and a nastier man never walked the streets of London. And he’s got a secret that costs him four precious shillings a week to keep safe. But even for Eel, things aren’t so bad until that fateful August day in 1854—the day the deadly cholera epidemic (“blue death”) comes to Broad Street. Everyone believes that cholera is spread through poisonous air. But one man, Dr. John Snow, has a different theory. As the epidemic surges, it’s up to Eel and his best friend, Florrie, to gather evidence to prove Dr. Snow’s theory—before the entire neighborhood is wiped out. “Hopkinson illuminates a pivotal chapter in the history of public health. . . . Accessible . . . and entertaining.” —School Library Journal, Starred “For [readers] who love suspense, drama, and mystery.” —TIME for Kids
Download or read book Investigating Cholera in Broad Street A History in Documents written by Peter Vinten-Johansen and published by Broadview Press. This book was released on 2020-03-15 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book features various accounts of a cholera outbreak in West London that killed over 500 people in ten days during the late summer of 1854. What had caused the outbreak? Local authorities of the time were flummoxed about the mode by which the disease had spread. What has become known as “the Broad Street pump episode” is one of the most significant early examples of a team-oriented investigation into the causes of an epidemic—a hallmark of epidemiology and public health today. This collection includes documents from the five separate investigations that were conducted into the possible causes. John Snow and Henry Whitehead made independent investigations; inspectors from the General Board of Health and the Sewer Commission, as well as a parish inquiry committee, also scrutinized the outbreak. This volume traces competing notions of how this disease was transmitted, starting with the first pandemic, which reached England in 1831, and it documents how they developed over time.
Download or read book The Cholera Years written by Charles E. Rosenberg and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-02-06 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cholera was the classic epidemic disease of the nineteenth century, as the plague had been for the fourteenth. Its defeat was a reflection not only of progress in medical knowledge but of enduring changes in American social thought. Rosenberg has focused his study on New York City, the most highly developed center of this new society. Carefully documented, full of descriptive detail, yet written with an urgent sense of the drama of the epidemic years, this narrative is as absorbing for general audiences as it is for the medical historian. In a new Afterword, Rosenberg discusses changes in historical method and concerns since the original publication of The Cholera Years. "A major work of interpretation of medical and social thought . . . this volume is also to be commended for its skillful, absorbing presentation of the background and the effects of this dread disease."—I.B. Cohen, New York Times "The Cholera Years is a masterful analysis of the moral and social interest attached to epidemic disease, providing generally applicable insights into how the connections between social change, changes in knowledge and changes in technical practice may be conceived."—Steven Shapin, Times Literary Supplement "In a way that is all too rarely done, Rosenberg has skillfully interwoven medical, social, and intellectual history to show how medicine and society interacted and changed during the 19th century. The history of medicine here takes its rightful place in the tapestry of human history."—John B. Blake, Science
Download or read book Snow on Cholera written by John Snow and published by . This book was released on 1936 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Guidelines for Drinking water Quality written by World Health Organization and published by World Health Organization. This book was released on 1993 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume describes the methods used in the surveillance of drinking water quality in the light of the special problems of small-community supplies, particularly in developing countries, and outlines the strategies necessary to ensure that surveillance is effective.
Download or read book A Plague of Prisons written by Ernest Drucker and published by New Press, The. This book was released on 2013-05-28 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The public health expert and prison reform activist offers “meticulous analysis” on our criminal justice system and the plague of American incarceration (The Washington Post). An internationally recognized public health scholar, Ernest Drucker uses the tools of epidemiology to demonstrate that incarceration in the United States has become an epidemic—a plague upon our body politic. He argues that imprisonment, originally conceived as a response to the crimes of individuals, has become “mass incarceration”: a destabilizing force that damages the very social structures that prevent crime. Drucker tracks the phenomenon of mass incarceration using basic public health concepts—“incidence and prevalence,” “outbreaks,” “contagion,” “transmission,” “potential years of life lost.” The resulting analysis demonstrates that our unprecedented rates of incarceration have the contagious and self-perpetuating features of the plagues of previous centuries. Sure to provoke debate and shift the paradigm of how we think about punishment, A Plague of Prisons offers a novel perspective on criminal justice in twenty-first-century America. “How did America’s addiction to prisons and mass incarceration get its start and how did it spread from state to state? Of the many attempts to answer this question, none make as much sense as the explanation found in [this] book.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer
Download or read book Investigating Cholera in Broad Street A History in Documents written by Peter Vinten-Johansen and published by Broadview Press. This book was released on 2020-03-15 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book features various accounts of a cholera outbreak in West London that killed over 500 people in ten days during the late summer of 1854. What had caused the outbreak? Local authorities of the time were flummoxed about the mode by which the disease had spread. What has become known as “the Broad Street pump episode” is one of the most significant early examples of a team-oriented investigation into the causes of an epidemic—a hallmark of epidemiology and public health today. This collection includes documents from the five separate investigations that were conducted into the possible causes. John Snow and Henry Whitehead made independent investigations; inspectors from the General Board of Health and the Sewer Commission, as well as a parish inquiry committee, also scrutinized the outbreak. This volume traces competing notions of how this disease was transmitted, starting with the first pandemic, which reached England in 1831, and it documents how they developed over time.
