I was impressed with the author’s description on page 96, about the contrast between the gargantuan, thriving metropolis and this microscopic virus.  Writes Johnson, “It is a great testament to the connectedness of life on earth that the fates of the largest and the tiniest life should be so closely dependent on each other.”  This puts into perspective how wild it is that something so minuscule has the ability to ravage thousands, in an advanced urban center nonetheless.  As far as civilization had reached at that point, a tiny particle not visible to the naked eye could be and was in fact responsible for so many deaths.  I thought it was interesting how Johnson frames this, mentioning the strength of our sense of smell over sight.  We often, even today, seem to rely significantly more on our vision, that we often forget how our olfactory senses are working at a much more ingrained, biological level.

As several have noted, it seems so simple to us now that the answer was right in front of their noses (although not in the way they’d expect).  However, the bacterium itself obviously could not be identified by any basic sense, but rather the combination of various research methods.  It is almost eerie in my opinion to read how Johnson dissects the every move of scientists and doctors like John Snow, how they piece together the clues and attempt to assimilate them into the conflicting dogma of the time.  In reading this I can’t help but think of how the epidemics discussed in class that are facing our society today will one day be analyzed in a similar matter.  It is easy to argue now that complex illnesses like cancer at present seem largely impossible to cure, save for certain correlations.  However, it will surely one day be a sickness of the past, examined in the history books, and talked about by future students like us, wondering how we could have missed the connections between the dots so clearly laid out in front of us.

As Johnson contends, Snow really was doing a brave, complicated task, and should be commended for the intricacy of his work.  Not only was he doing scientific research and sociological study, he was also working to change the seemingly incontestable health opinions of the time.  With this I can’t help but wonder, what’s next in modern public health to be disproven as common truth?

-Jacqui Larsen