The Map of London That Ended a Cholera Epidemic
In 1854, physician John Snow traced a deadly cholera outbreak to a single water pump by drawing dots on a street map, defying the belief that disease spread through foul air. His stubborn detective work in Soho became the founding moment of modern epidemiology. This is the story of how a map beat a miasma.
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John Snow used shoe-leather epidemiology to track five hundred deaths occurring within ten days in Soho.
The Ghost Map visualized deaths as black bars to prove cholera was geographic rather than airborne.
Statistical analysis linked sixty-one of eighty-three early victims to the single Broad Street water pump.
Snow identified transmission routes by mapping the shortest walking distance between homes and water sources.
Removing the Broad Street pump handle in September eighteen fifty-four marked a turning point in public health.
London's modern drainage system was built after the Great Stink of eighteen fifty-eight forced parliamentary action.
- 01Intro1 min
- 02The Soho Slaughter and the Miasma Myth3 min
- 03Shoe-Leather and the Ghost Map3 min
- 04The Geometry of Contagion2 min
- 05The Handle and the Legacy2 min
- 06Outro1 min
- 2. Results
- 1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak - Wikipedia
- Map a historic cholera outbreak | Documentation - Learn ArcGIS
- John Snow: Cholera & the Broad Street pump - London Museum
- Our sense of Snow: the myth of John Snow in medical geography
- Facts and ideas from anywhere - PMC - NIH
- A map taken from a report by Dr. John Snow - Wellcome Collection
- Miasma theory - Wikipedia
- History of the Miasma Theory of Disease
- Miasma Theory - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics
- Death and miasma in Victorian London: an obstinate belief
- a historical approach to theories of infectious disease transmission
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