The Ghost Map isn’t just a story about some aspect of public health; I would argue that it is a recounting one of the defining moments of public health. The book describes the history of one man, Dr. John Snow, as he defiantly set about to investigate the cause of London’s cholera outbreaks in the mid-nineteenth century. His contributions to medicine would ultimately lend to the field that would evolve into public health.
It isn’t correct to suggest that London had no regards towards public health prior to Dr. Snow’s efforts. The city had organized a sewer to clear away waste water from the streets, private companies cleared out cesspits and outhouses, and others companies delivered plumbed water to those who could afford it to name just
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Again, at the time of Dr. Snow’s practice, germ theory wasn’t even in its infancy. It might be more appropriate to say the theory was still in utero. It was understood that there was some causative agent behind illness, but with limited ability to detect and identify the actual agents of disease – in the case of cholera the cause was a bacteria – it was nearly impossible to definitively place blame. Proponents of the miasma theory believed that impure air could cause disease, and in some ways they were correct. For example, inhaling smoke, a form of impure air, can cause a range of pulmonary diseases in addition to an immediate cough. Dr. Snow, on the other hand, was hesitant to blame air on everything. If bad air alone was to blame, why did it not affect all who breathed it equally? With such questions in mind, he set out to scientifically gather evidence towards his theory surrounding water …show more content…
Snow attempted to inform and educate those he came in contact with, advising them to avoid the Broad Street pump’s water. Inform, educate, and empower is another aspect of public health I will be expected to engage in. Later, Dr. Snow brought his findings to the attention of the local health board as well as the neighborhood parish. The parish was ultimately more willing to hear out his theory, and despite the theory’s contradictory stance to miasma, they went ahead and removed the offending water pump’s handle. One could even argue that this interaction was in alignment with yet another essential element of public health: mobilization. By working with the parish, Dr. Snow mobilized a community partner – in this case, the parish – to action. One of the more interesting aspects of his work was that in mobilizing the parish, he turned one of his more heated critics, Reverend Whitehead, into a
...children to have the smallpox vaccination. Towns began building pure water systems and sewer systems, creating a much cleaner environment.
For instance, reading about how the citizens of London lived very uncleanly lives and how that impacted their health makes me want to not only practice healthy habits for myself, but makes me want to promote cleaner living. As a pre-nursing major I have gained more knowledge and awareness about hygiene and sanitation that I can hopefully educate others about. I feel as though education is an important part of public health because educating the public about the harm of poor health practices, can help in preventing things such as the development and spread of diseases such as cholera, which was demonstrated within the
“The Ghost Map,” written by Steven Johnson, told a narrative story of the cholera outbreak in London. In the summer of 1854, the patient zero, an infant child of Sarah Lewis, became sick with cholera. In the midst of the panic that Sarah Lewis felt losing her child, she threw the infected waste into a cesspool nearby her home. This is how the cholera outbreak began. Soon there were reports of cholera all over London, and multiple theories of how cholera was contracted were published in newspapers and journals. The most prevalent was the Miasma Theory, the belief that the city’s crowding, along with poor sanitation and hygiene, created a foul smell in the air which, when inhaled, caused the epidemic disease. However, John Snow would be the one to discover that it was not the foul air that caused cholera, though the filthy environment was a strong
Since Plagues and Peoples covers several subjects of knowledge, he helps the reader understand key concepts by fully explaining parasitism and its dependence on humans and animals. People in the field of history, which make up a majority of this books audience, would need more insight into epidemiology to grasp its key concepts. It would not be likely for a historian to be knowledgeable in a branch of medical science that deals with the incidence, distribution, and control of disease in populations.
One new thing I learned after reading this chapter is that William Farr was actually very close in also determining the cause of the cholera outbreak. To my knowledge, as it was taught to me, John Snow was the father of epidemiology and he solved the cholera case. As this is true, William Farr was never regarded while being taught the basics of epidemiology.
In the early 1880s, Chicago was a bustling city on its way to becoming one of great cities in the world. There was a problem though. Horrible sanitation problems plagued the city. The Chicago River was virtually an open sewer covered with visible filth. Most of the river’s worst pollution came from homes and bathroom waste thought the city. “Bubbly Creek” was one of the worst branches of the river. It was filled with enough stockyard waste to equal the pollution from a sizable city. To further the problem, all of the contents of the river flowed into Lake Michigan, polluting Chicago’s drinking water causing a sever outbreak of water born diseases.
He discusses the overflows local wastewater systems experience because “cities combine sewage and stormwater in a single collection system”(66). The tone present is not supportive and shows the author’s bias against the collection system that has given plenty of citizens drinkable water. As he describes the incident in Milwaukee and the District of Columbia, Glennon makes it seem like the government purposefully “dumped” raw sewage to harm its citizens. Nowhere in his grounds does he include the benefits that come with having a collection system. He continues on to talk about a teenage boy who “became the sixth victim of Naegleria forvleri after being infected while swimming in Lake Havasu”(67). Glennon throws in opinionated words like “grisly” and “disgusting” to make more of an impact on the audience, and this displays his bias against water pollution. He describes the results of a couple of parasites, but does not specifically state where the parasites originate from, thus disqualifying that the death of the boy was a result of raw sewage being dumped in the lake the boy was swimming in, as the parasite could have appeared from other sources. Glennon proceeds with a qualifier... “almost 2,000 people in Idaho and Utah suffered from infection by cryptosporidium, believed to have been spread at “splash parks” where children play”(67). Using the word “believed”, undermines the true source of
Imagine a world where there was a great chance of a mother dying right after giving birth to her child. Sounds like a pretty crazy supposition. Unfortunately, not too long ago, that was the world we called home. Nuland’s book discusses the unfortunate tragedies of puerperal fever and the journey the medical field in Europe took to discover a cause and prevention. Hand in hand, Nuland also depicts the life of Ignác Semmelweis, the unknown founder of the aforementioned cause and prevention strategies: washing hands in chloride of lime. The Doctors’ Plague is a worthwhile read based off the information provided, its ability to break new ground, and the credibility of its author and sources.
She finds the topic interesting mainly because the sheer numbers of childhood deaths related to the epidemic in London from 1865 to the turn of the century. In her acknowledgements she equates the unsettling deaths with being on the receiving end as a mother and not being able to handle such tragedy. “The writing of this book saved my sanity during their babyhood: their company makes me profoundly grateful that deadly epidemics of childhood infections are at this moment essentially a terror of the past” (p. VII). Anne chose a curiosity in this book for a lecturer, but gained the knowledge of scholars that made medical history over the years. As the reader carries on through the book assumptions are made and correlations of the work of experts are exhibited. One may think that this would be troublesome for an untrained reader; however, it most certainly is the exact
Swollen bodies and red crosses were the most common sites seen by Londoners in the year of 1665. The bitter and gloomy city of London encountered its last major deadly disease in that year. The bubonic plague hit the great city of London in 1665 and killed most of London’s population. The return of the bubonic plague wreaked havoc in the well-known city. The Great Plague of London was a deadly disease that took the lives of about 100,000 which caused the Londoners to have Bills of Mortality to keep track of the weekly death rates, and the disease also inspired poetry and diaries to be written.
Steven Johnson is an accomplished author who tells a compelling, well written and informative book, The Ghost Map, which tells an intriguing story of the 1854 cholera outbreak in London while at the same time provides a wide array of information surrounding the thoughts and beliefs of the majority of the current society.
... one can see this with the consequences of dumping. Families are harmed when drinking water is contaminated with hazardous fluids that seep into
...tions and epidemiology around 1900. Studies In History & Philosophy Of Biological & Biomedical Sciences, 41(3), 232-240. doi:10.1016/j.shpsc.2010.04.012
Public health is a multitudinous field which draws from various different facets of knowledge. The concept and field of public health is one that cannot be defined simply in black and white terms. Instead, public health remains in a state of gray. This is due to the fact that many of the actions and precautions that public health officials enact are beneficial to some groups, yet detrimental to others. Public health officials work at all levels, including the federal, state, and local level. These officials discuss and enact health-related policies that are implemented in order to protect the community’s health and prevent illness, disease, injury, and even death. Therefore, public health officials confer and discuss numerous decisions and
In response to the outbreak of cholera in major industrial cities in the early 1850s Dr. John Snow used the O...