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In 1831, an unknown, horrifying, and deadly disease from Asia swept across continental Europe and North America, killing millions and throwing the medical profession into confusion. A killer with little respect for class or wealth, cholera ravaged the squalid streets of Soho and rocked the great centers of Victorian power.
In this gripping book, Sandra Hempel tells the story of John Snow, a reclusive doctor without money or social position, who—alone and unrecognized—had the genius to look beyond the conventional wisdom of his day and uncover the truth behind the pandemic. She describes how Snow discovered that cholera was spread through drinking water and how this subsequently laid the foundations for the modern, scientific investigation of today's fatal plagues.
A dramatic account with a colorful cast of characters, The Strange Case of the Broad Street Pump features diversions into fascinating facets of medical and social history, such as Snow's tending of Queen Victoria in childbirth, Dutch microbiologist Leeuwenhoek's deliberate breeding of lice in his socks, Dickensian children's farms, and riotous nineteenth-century anesthesia parties. An afterword discusses the new threat of infectious diseases—including malaria, yellow fever, and cholera—with today's global warming.
Copub: Granta
| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub |
Lois Lightfoot
reviewed The Strange Case of the Broad Street Pump: John Snow and the Mystery of Cholera on August 25, 2020
The Strange Case of the Broad Street Pump: John Snow and the Mystery of Cholera
" You and I may not live to see the day, and my name may be forgotten when it comes, but the time will arrive when great outbreaks of cholera will be things of the past; and it is the knowledge of the way in which the disease is propogated which will cause them to disappear. "
The Victorian plague, arguably, was Cholera. This book charts the arrival of the disease in Britain, and the long journey from suspicion to theory to scientific certainty of Dr John Snow's belief in contagion as a vector for disease, and a very interesting story it is too...
There's An impressive cast, from Queen Victoria through Charles Dickens and Florence Nightingale (right idea, wrong theory), and, in an incredible case of some things never change, see the good merchants of Sunderland try to pass the disease off as a bad case of Broon Bot in an attempt to duck a quarantine...
It's a good description of a pivotal "moment" in scientific and medical history, a good companion to The Ghost Map: A Street, an Epidemic and the Hidden Power of Urban Networks (dealing only with the climactic outbreak and Snow's final breakthrough, and it's implications for our world), filling in as it does the histories of Dr Snow and of the disease itself and putting everything into context.
Not for the squeamish (it's a pretty grim lurgey, to be sure, and Victorian society plainly isn't much better), but if you're sufficiently strong of stomach it's a damn good read.
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Add The Strange Case of the Broad Street Pump: John Snow and the Mystery of Cholera, In 1831, an unknown, horrifying, and deadly disease from Asia swept across continental Europe and North America, killing millions and throwing the medical profession into confusion. A killer with little respect for class or wealth, cholera ravaged th, The Strange Case of the Broad Street Pump: John Snow and the Mystery of Cholera to the inventory that you are selling on WonderClubX
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Add The Strange Case of the Broad Street Pump: John Snow and the Mystery of Cholera, In 1831, an unknown, horrifying, and deadly disease from Asia swept across continental Europe and North America, killing millions and throwing the medical profession into confusion. A killer with little respect for class or wealth, cholera ravaged th, The Strange Case of the Broad Street Pump: John Snow and the Mystery of Cholera to your collection on WonderClub |