3 thoughts on “”

1. Time and again we take for granted the development and progression of society, and modern science. From the opening lines of the novel, “ It is August 1854, and London is a city of Scavengers. Just the names alone read now like some kind of exotic zoological catalogue: bone pickers, rag-gatherers, pure-finders, dredgermen, mud larks, sewer hunters, dustmen, night-soil men, bunters, toshers, shoremen.”, it is clear that London has a deeply rooted social class system. The author continues to clearly delineate the horrendous “jobs” the aforementioned people perform. These hapless members of society were not only exposed to terrible “working” conditions, but also experienced an entrenched aversion during the nascence of the cholera outbreak. Many people believed that the upper class was immune to cholera, and that the “mean and bad” people were being attacked selectively. This false belief, along with many others, served as thorn in the road to discovering the true cause of the outbreak of cholera.

   One of the factors that was presented by the author which had a major role in this epidemic was the gullibility of society. There were countless times in which charlatans posed quick and easy methods as the cure for cholera. Many of these “solutions,” however, proved to do more harm than good. We take for granted how far we have progressed in the medical field. As shown by the author, people didn’t know anything about medicine and were swayed by any quack. It is interesting to note that not many people were convinced at first by John Snow’s, a well known figure in the medical field, observations. It was his keen eye, along with Whitehead’s history with Soho, which helped crack the cholera epidemic. So I ask, how does it feel to live in a time period in which a gripping epidemic makes the continuation of life so uncertain?

   David Zilberman

   • The quacks in London in the 1840’s had a field day prescribing bogus cures and treatments for cholera to their eager patients. Leeches, opium, castor oil, and medicines such as “Saunder’s anti-mephitic fluid” were all being bandied about as possible cures. Retroactively it is easy for us to look at history and wonder why only one person thought to treat a dehydrating disease with water, but I ask you-are we any different? On a much lesser scale, don’t we too fall for scams that claim to make us healthier? (I am not referring to actual medicines, but to the many different health-related trends that claim to prevent cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc..)

2. Feedback on Ghost Map Chapter 1-3
   “London’s underground market of scavenging had its own system of rank and privilege, and near the top were the night soil men.” This quote was extremely important to me since it introduced the unequal and unjust class system in Victorian-age London that eventually led to the rapid spread of cholera. What was even worse was the filthy urban sprawl, which was the main reason for a low quality of life. The well-known author, Charles Dickens, who was characterized for revealing the horrendous living standard in Victorian England and communists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were referenced when showing the social inequalities of London. What Dickens, Marx and Engels did not reveal, however, was the vast epidemic of disease, particularly cholera, which affected inner city dwellers in England.
   The death due to cholera was due to the mass evacuation of fluid in the human body in a short period of time, although at that time, the cause was unknown. The quote that stood out to me was, “The tragic irony of cholera is that the disease has a shockingly sensible and low-tech cure: water”. In Victorian age and early 20th century England, the public health system was so underdeveloped to the point that people did not know about simple strategies to prevent deaths, whether it was due to disease, childbirth, or food.
   As a tentative history major, what interests me the most is the connection between Victorian England and modern America in terms of public health. Last week, we discussed about the issues relating to public health, such as car accidents, obesity, gun violence, teenage pregnancies and drug abuse. There also are STDs, including HIV, cancer, heart disease, and many more issues relating to health. Just like the issue relating to cholera, all of those issues relate to social class, since poorer people and people of color are much more likely to be affected with most of those epidemics. What I wonder, though, is whether the issues that plague us today can be easily resolved, like that of cholera, but that we are just completely ignorant of them.
   Jacqueline Retalis

Comments are closed.