It is all too easy to draw parallels between the confusion brought on by nineteenth century London’s cholera outbreak and that of the United States’ HIV outbreak in the late twentieth century. It seems that, without proper scientific evidence to show them the way, even professionals have a hard time breaking away from intuition. In London, the only theory remotely applicable to cholera’s actual cause–John Snow’s theory of waterborne illness–was given virtually no attention by the media, while miasmic theories pervaded the public mind; in the case of early HIV in the U.S., the first noted cases of abnormal illness were attributed, somehow, to the infected being gay–or living a different “lifestyle” than the norm–and doctors didn’t stop to think that, perhaps, they were looking in the wrong direction. In both events, the proponents of the most dominant theories ran with them, putting on the back burner, ignoring or all-too-quickly rejecting the ideas of those that would ultimately help the most. How common is this occurrence during outbreaks of illness over time? What would have happened if Snow had stopped investigating the root of the outbreak? If he had not been so vigorous in his surveying of the area and its people? If Henry Whitehead had not stepped in to convince the public?
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