While reading chapter entitled, “All Smell is Disease”, I found the miasmist’s recalcitrant behavior, to a certain extent, to be quite unusual. In the end, one of the causes of the rapid spread of Cholera was the development of a sewage system; the system’s development was highly promoted by the miasmists. Edwin Chadwick was a very influential miasmist who was a major force behind the development of London’s sewage system, at the same time, he caused the death of many people living in London.

What I found to be strange was that the miasmists were not willing to even give John Snow’s water borne theory a chance. They were so enveloped in London’s putrid smell that all the evidence John Snow had to prove otherwise, was simply brushed off. What’s even more ironic to point out was the John Snow was an esteemed physician. He had plenty of experience with ether vapor and chloroform. This would give him back ground knowledge of the effects of noxious fumes on bodies, and they all pointed away from the miasmist’s theory. Certain obvious factors like differing effects of “poisonous” airs amongst people were deemed to be the cause of moral depravity etc. It just seems like, as the author pointed out, that the miasmists could not admit that they were possibly wrong in their diagnosis of the cause of Cholera. They even elected another miasmist, Benjamin Hall, to replace Edwin Chadwick as president of the Board of Health. I just can’t but blame many deaths of Londoners because of the miasmist’s refusal to clearly see the evidence pointing in another direction from miasma.

What I wanted to ask is: How would the development of Cholera in London be different if John Snow was president of the Board of Health? Would the miasmist’s listen to him if he were in such an esteemed position?

David Zilberman