Though I certainly enjoyed reading the last few chapters of The Ghost Map, I couldn’t help but come away with the impression that Steven Johnson’s work, while admittedly quite riveting, faded slightly down the stretch Johnson’s repeated rehashing of the miasma theory’s inexplicable hold on the otherwise educated and reasonable medical establishment grew quite tedious, and his subsequent, and slightly pretentious, bewilderment at the very notion of such stubborn and irrational thinking is almost certainly a beneficiary of excellent hindsight To prove my point, I quote: “How could so many intelligent people be so grievously wrong for such an extended period of time? How could they ignore so much overwhelming evidence that contradicted their most basic theories? These questions, too, deserve their own discipline: the sociology of error”
While he was concerned with belittling the intelligence of a long gone medical establishment, Johnson grievously forgot to mention the myriad of airborne diseases which were, in fact, adequately, at least at that time, explained by the miasma theory Some of the most destructive diseases of Victorian-era England can spread by airborne transmission, including the flu, measles, smallpox and tuberculosis At its peak in the 19th century, Tuberculosis was responsible for 25% of all deaths in Europe How can you fault physicians for being reluctant to shy away from a theory that so sufficiently accounted for the most dangerous disease of their time?
(Submitted on time, as a comment, moved to a post by Jennifer)
