After reading these chapters, I became interested in the public’s, despite class, opinion on his the epidemic should be researched and handled. Chapter 4 discusses how John Snow based his research on various uncertainties (for example: he was unsure how V. Cholerae appeared under a microscope) as well as the fact that Snow relied on the success of the disease in order to study it’s patterns, symptoms, and cases.
This may be blunt, but why does it seem, like people weren’t taking the study this epidemic to seriously? The existence of the miasma argument shows that society did not understand the spread of disease as we do today, but after reading about the historical fear of unsanitary drinking water it seems like the answer was right in front of their faces.
The text constantly describes the ever decreasing quality of life in London, even comparing it to the plague, but was this not apparent to the citizens of this city? Or did it just come second to survival?
The fact of the matter is that the solution to this grave problem was present from the very beginning. The people at the time were either blind to it, or were unwilling to accept this as the solution. Looking at this problem from the modern standpoint, it seems rather foolish that the physicians and scientists of the day did not bother to study the bacteria. However, it is also important to understand that many of these people were so firm in their faith in the Miasmata Theory that nothing, not even substantial scientific and statistical data, would alter their conviction.