Sources for Medicine Through Time 2022 Year 9 October Examination
How important was John Snow in the fight against cholera?
Cholera hit Britain in four massive epidemics in 1831-2, 1848-9, 1853-4 and 1866-7, killing over
125,000 people. There were many theories as to what caused cholera and many so-called ‘cures’
were offered to the public. In 1854 John Snow, a young doctor working in London, came up with one
theory based on research of the area around Broad Street in Soho, London. He claimed this theory
was supported by scientific proof. But has he been given too much credit for this? After all, it was
not until 1861 that Pasteur published his theory that germs cause disease, and not until 1884 that
Robert Koch discovered the germ that caused cholera.
Source A
A cartoon called ‘A
Court For King
Cholera’, published in
1852.
Source B
Sir, may we beg for your protection and power? We are, Sir, living in a wilderness so far as the rest
of London knowns anything of us. The rich and great people do not care about us. We live in muck
and filth. We aint got no privies, no dust bins, no drains, no water supplies, and no drain or sewer in
the whole place. The sewer Company, in Greek St., Soho Square, all great, rich, powerful men take
no notice whatsoever of our complaints. The stench of a gulley-hole is disgusting. We all of us suffer,
and numbers are ill, and if the cholera comes, Lord help us.
A letter in The Times in 1849, referring to the Broad Street area,
Soho, London.
Privies = toilets, Gulley-hole = where sewage is thrown into
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Sources for Medicine Through Time 2022 Year 9 October Examination
Source C
Within two hundred and fifty yards of the water pump in Broad Street, there were upwards of five
hundred fatal attacks of cholera in ten days. There were only ten deaths in houses situated nearer
another street pump. In five of these cases , the families of the deceased persons informed me that
they always used the pump in Broad Street. In three other cases, the deceased were children who
went to the school near the pump in Broad Street. There is a brewery in Broad Street, near to the
pump. Mr Higgins, the owner, informed me that there were more than seventy workmen employed
in the brewery, and that none of them had suffered from the cholera. The men were allowed to
drink beer and Mr Higgins believes they do not drink water at all. He is quite certain they never
obtained water from the pump in the street. There had been deaths from cholera just before the
great outbreak not far from all this well-pump, and human waste might, of course, be amongst the
impurities finding their way into the water.
Part of John Snow’s report on the causes of cholera, published in 1854.
Source D
In August 1854, cholera
cases began to appear in
Soho, London. John Snow
marked on a map the
number of cholera cases
and the position of the
local water pumps. This is
his map of the area
around Broad Street,
Soho. Each short black line
represents a person who
died; several lines
together indicate many
people from the same
household.
Source E
If the Broad Street pump did actually become a source of disease, we believe that this may have
been because its impure waters had soaked up the atmospheric infection (bad air) of the district. On
the evidence it seems impossible to doubt that the geographical distribution of cholera in London
belongs more to the air than the water.
From The Report of the Committee for Scientific Enquiry into the Recent Cholera Epidemic published in 1855.
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Sources for Medicine Through Time 2022 Year 9 October Examination
Source F
This cartoon,
‘Death’s
Dispensary’,
was published
in 1866.
Dispensary =
chemist
Parish = church
area
Open to the poor, death by permission of the Parish
Source G
It is now certain that the faulty water supply of a town is the main cause of the most terrible disease
outbreaks of cholera, typhoid fever, dysentery and other similar illnesses. Dr Snow was not able to
give proofs of his theory, but afterwards (and happily before his death in 1858) experiments
established as almost certain that his guess had been right.
From the annual report by John Smith, Chief Medical Officer of Health, to the Privy Council in 1870.
Source H
The question as to whether the germs found in the bodies of those who died from cholera are
definitely those of the cholera germ can now be considered closed. Cholera did not come into being
spontaneously – out of nothing. It is a disease that attacks only those who have swallowed the
comma-shaped germ.
From a report made by Robert Koch to the German government in 1884.
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