Who was John Snow?
John Snow was a British physician who lived from 1813-1858.
Snow was best known for his legendary work in public health, specifically epidemiology
and anesthesiology. Snow was “one of the founders of epidemiology for his work
identifying the source of a cholera outbreak in 1854.” Snow is
referred to as the Father of Epidemiology.
Cholera was an infectious and often fatal bacterial disease.
It was unknown early on as to what was causing the disease; it was assumed that
cholera was airborne. “Most physicians believed that cholera was caused by “miasmas”
poisonous gases that were thought to arise from sewers, swamps, garbage pits,
open graves, and other foul-smelling sites of organic decay.” John Snow did not
believe the theory of the disease being airborne; with the research that Snow
had conducted the theory could not be plausible. During this cholera outbreak “Snow
began examining sick patients. All of them reported that
their first symptoms had been digestive problems. Snow reasoned that this
proved that the disease must be ingested with polluted food or water.” With
these finding Snow could prove that the “miasmas” theory was just a theory.
Snow published an essay titled; On the Mode of Communication of Cholera the essay contained documentary evidence and
a reasoned argument that supported his theory. Many of Snow’s colleagues and peers did not
take Snow’s theory seriously. However, “Snow continued to work on his
theory that drinking water was the primary means of contagion. He accumulated
data that had been collected in the epidemic of 1848-1849 and that showed that
patterns of the disease could be linked with specific water supplies.” Snow’s colleagues
were still skeptical to his cholera theory, but that did not stop them from
giving Snow praise on his findings in anesthesiology. “Snow conducted translational research that
enabled him to understand the mechanisms of vaporizing volatile anesthetic
agents, ether and chloroform, so that safe delivery systems of anesthesia could
be designed.” He later gave anesthetics to Queen Victoria
for the birth of two of her children.
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