Amanda Neve

Assignment 1
Bio 432-002
Aug 25, 2020

It was the outbreak of Cholera on Broad Street in Soho, London that gave John Snow the

title “The Father of Epidemiology” (Waheed Kab, 2017). In 1854 there was an outbreak of

Cholera that killed approximately 600 individuals. Soho was a busy town, filled with lots of

people, and no indoor plumbing. In 1854 there was not an organized way of cleaning the streets

or sweeping the gutters. It was a place where at times the air felt toxic. People believed that the

disease came from Miasma. Miasma was the stink in the air that came from the dirty streets, or

the cesspools of fecal matter that was deposited in front of houses. John Snow believed there was

a different connection. He went to Soho to conduct research and try to understand where the

outbreak was really coming from. John Snow mapped out the water pumps in the city. With the

help of a local Henry Whitehead and others, John Snow was able to collect reliable information

on where people lived, and worked, as well as those who were contracting the disease and dying.

Once this information was compiled John Snow was able to see that most of the cases were

occurring around broad street. Current epidemiology scientists need to document people that

should be getting sick that aren’t, and those who are sick for no apparent reason, and explain

these exceptions. John Snow was able to do this in 1854 making a strong case of how cholera

was being transmitted. There was a brewery on Broad Street full of workers that never contracted

cholera. A few blocks from Broad Street was a factory filled with individuals that never got sick,

despite their unhealthy status. The pump on Broad Street would have been the closest for them to

walk and get water. These two groups of individuals were not drinking from the pump on broad
street. The brewery workers were drinking beer, and the factory had its own water well inside,

which explained these exceptions. There was also another exception. A case of cholera of an

individual that neither worked or lived near Broad Street in London. After some research John

learned that a family took the water from the Broad Street pump to their grandma’s house. There

the grandma and little girl drank the water and both contracted cholera. Once John had compiled

all the information and recognized the patterns, he decided to take away the water handle from

the pump. Once he did this people were forced to choose to get water from another pump.

Almost immediately the number of cholera cases went down. This proved that it was the

contaminated water from Broad Street pump that was the source of the disease (HarvardX,

2017).

John Snow is an important person in epidemiology. He is probably the first scientist to

map out cases of outbreak geographically (Waheed Kab, 2017). He also was a pioneer of human

data collection. With the help of other locals he was able to compile a lot of information about

the community (HarvardX, 2017). John Snow organized the information in a way that was easy

to understand, and guided him to a way to stop the spread of cholera by removing the water

pump handle.
 References

HarvardX. (2017). John Snow and the 1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak [YouTube Video].

Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNjrAXGRda4

Waheed Kab. (2017). (Epidemiology Course) Pioneers of Epidemiology History Part 2 out of 26.

Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsdodngCu64