Pelling, Margaret (Author)
During the COVID-19 epidemic, the name of the 19th-century English physician John Snow (1813-1858) has cropped up to a surprising extent, notably in connection with the severe cholera epidemic of 1854 in the district of Golden Square, London. It is repeatedly stated that Snow brought this epidemic of waterborne disease to an end by removing the handle of the Broad Street pump. It is also widely known that this story is a myth. Nonetheless, the Broad Street pump story as told by Snow's close friend Benjamin Ward Richardson remains embedded, partly, it is argued, because of its appeal to areas of the cultural consciousness. In America, Snow and his work on the epidemiology of cholera, including the Broad Street pump story, achieved a serious status which has endured, in one form or another, to the present day. In contrast to Britain, the heroic age of public health in America coincided with the optimism of the bacteriological revolution and higher hopes for medical science. However, this rapidly changing environment exacerbated differences of opinion as to what the small and emergent specialty of epidemiology should look like, what its project was, and where it should be based. Different versions of Snow's persona came to represent basic and often conflicting conceptions of epidemiology and the status (or lack of it) of its practitioners. For many, consciously or otherwise, the removal of the Broad Street pump handle remained an individualistic triumph, a single human intervention which resembled modern medicine in providing a “cure.”
...More
Article
Mathias Schütz;
(2020)
Hygiene und Historiographie: Karl Kisskalts epidemiologischer Revisionismus und das Erbe Max von Pettenkofers (Hygiene and historiography: Karl Kisskalt's epidemiological revisionism and the legacy of Max von Pettenkofer)
(/isis/citation/CBB408049525/)
Book
Hardy, Anne Irmgard;
(2015)
Salmonella Infections, Networks of Knowledge, and Public Health in Britain, 1880--1975
(/isis/citation/CBB001422654/)
Book
Aro Velmet;
(2020)
Pasteur's Empire: Bacteriology and Politics in France, Its Colonies, and the World
(/isis/citation/CBB544344699/)
Article
Christos Lynteris;
(2019)
Pestis Minor: The History of a Contested Plague Pathology
(/isis/citation/CBB470982762/)
Book
Porras Gallo, María Isabel;
María Isabel / Báguena Cervellera, María José / Ayarzagüena Sanz, Mariano / Martín Espinosa, Noelia María Porras Gallo;
Ayarzagüena Sanz, Mariano;
Noelia María Martín Espinosa;
(2016)
La erradicación y el control de las enfermedades infecciosas
(/isis/citation/CBB703301554/)
Article
Alcalá Ferráez, Carlos;
(2012)
De miasmas a mosquitos: el pensamiento médico sobre la fiebre amarilla en Yucatán, 1890--1920
(/isis/citation/CBB001420572/)
Book
Jorland, Gérard;
(2010)
Une société à soigner: hygiène et salubrité publiques en France au XIXe siècle
(/isis/citation/CBB001024792/)
Book
Vinten-Johansen, Peter;
(2003)
Cholera, Chloroform, and the Science of Medicine: A Life of John Snow
(/isis/citation/CBB000320298/)
Article
Engelmann, Lukas;
(2023)
A Short Introduction into the English-Language Historiography of Epidemiology
(/isis/citation/CBB175885423/)
Book
Daniel, Thomas M.;
(2000)
Pioneers of Medicine and Their Impact on Tuberculosis
(/isis/citation/CBB000102104/)
Article
Robert Bartlett;
Yamaan Saadeh;
(2016)
Victor Vaughan (1851–1929) and the Birth of Bacteriology in the United States
(/isis/citation/CBB802547446/)
Thesis
Whooley, Owen;
(2010)
Cholera and Quacks: The Epistemic Contest over Medicine in the 19th Century United States
(/isis/citation/CBB001562748/)
Article
Alexander I. Parry;
(2023)
Delivering Bacteriology to the American Homemaker: Correspondence Education, Kitchen Experiments, and Public Health, 1890–1930
(/isis/citation/CBB239832240/)
Article
Platt, Harold L.;
(2004)
“Clever Microbes”: Bacteriology and Sanitary Technology in Manchester and Chicago During the Progressive Age
(/isis/citation/CBB000750325/)
Thesis
Roberts, Samuel Kelton;
(2002)
Infectious fear: Tuberculosis, public health, and the logic of race and illness in Baltimore, Maryland, 1880--1930
(/isis/citation/CBB001562176/)
Book
Brown, Kathleen M.;
(2009)
Foul Bodies: Cleanliness in Early America
(/isis/citation/CBB001231495/)
Thesis
Rebecca K. Cecala;
(2016)
Creating a Narrative of Life: Public Health Through the Eyes of Dr. Sara Josephine Baker
(/isis/citation/CBB769695115/)
Book
Campkin, Ben;
Cox, Rosie;
(2007)
Dirt: New Geographies of Cleanliness and Contamination
(/isis/citation/CBB001031281/)
Thesis
Espinosa, Mariola;
(2003)
Epidemic Invasions: Yellow Fever, Public Health, and the Limits of Cuban Independence, 1878 through the Early Republic
(/isis/citation/CBB001562033/)
Thesis
Engineer, Urmi;
(2010)
Hurricane and the Human Frame: Yellow Fever, Race, and Public Health in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans
(/isis/citation/CBB001562769/)
Be the first to comment!