The Medical Detective: John Snow and the Mystery of CholeraIn the 1820s an unknown, horrifying and deadly disease from Asia swept across Continental Europe, killing millions in its path and throwing the medical profession into chaos. Cholera was a killer with little respect for class or wealth, and when it arrived in Britain, its repercussions rocked Victorian England - from the filthy lanes of the Sunderland quayside and the squalid streets of Soho to the great centres of power: the Privy Council, Whitehall and the Royal Medical Congress. One man - alone and unrecognised - uncovered the truth behind the pandemic and laid the foundations for the modern, scientific investigation of today's fatal plagues. John Snow was a reclusive doctor, without money or social position, who had the genius to look beyond the conventional wisdom of his day. Serious-minded yet deeply compassionate, he refused to give up his quest to explain cholera, despite being ignored and dismissed by his own profession. Drawing extensively on nineteenth-century medical, political and personal records, The Medical Detective paints a vivid picture of medical society of the day and is full of colourful characters and practices, from doctors at Westminster Hospital duelling on Clapham Common, to Dickensian children's farms and riotous Victorian anaesthesia parties. Amidst this emerges the dramatic story of an important breakthrough for medical science, and of one individual's determination to use science to help his fellow man. |
Contents
The Long Journey | 1 |
A Country Holds its Breath | 9 |
A Desperate Search | 30 |
Copyright | |
17 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
The Medical Detective: John Snow, Cholera And The Mystery Of The Broad ... Sandra Hempel Limited preview - 2014 |
The Medical Detective: John Snow, Cholera and the Mystery of the Broad ... Sandra Hempel No preview available - 2007 |
Common terms and phrases
Albion Terrace appeared Arthur Hill Hassall Asiatic cholera attack Berwick Street Board of Health body British Broad Street Broad Street pump Budd called cause chloroform cholera morbus cholera patients Clanny colleagues College of Physicians Daun dead death described despite diarrhoea died disease district doctors drain drinking water Drouet East End East London East London Waterworks Edwin Chadwick Edwin Lankester epidemic ergot ether experience Farr fever fungus Greaves Hall Hardcastle Hassall Henry Whitehead Heytesbury hospital houses huge India infected James John Snow known Lancet later living medicine Old Ford outbreak Paget parish person poison Privy Council pump quarantine reported Richardson river river Lea Royal College September sewer sick Sir Benjamin Sir Henry smell Snow's Soho Southwark and Vauxhall spread St Petersburg Sunderland surgeon symptoms Thames theory Thomas Wakley told town Vibrio cholerae victims vomiting Wakley water supply weeks Westminster William William Farr wrote