Interestingly enough, I’m actually extremely sick at the moment, which is why I was out of school today and I won’t be in class tomorrow. It’s funny how reading a book on cholera while you’re sick can play games with the mind.
Anyway, I continue to be a fan of John Snow and everything he does. I like how he used maps to bolster the credibility of his research. It was very smart of him to decide to research anomalies in and surrounding the Broad Street area; it’s often the exceptions to the rule that prove it. In this case, the fact that there was evidence that showed that cholera cases decreased in areas that relied in different pumps should be enough to persuade people. Unfortunately, miasmatists were very hard to convince.
It was also interesting reading about the different reasons miasma theory was so popular. As expected, miasma theory was very useful in upholding class prejudices – the “undesirables” of the city were surely to blame, as they lived in horrid conditions with offensive smells! Of course they’d be responsible for cholera. It’s interesting also to see the role that religion had in miasma theory. In short, it’s unfortunate how easily an incorrect viewpoint can persist simply because it reaffirms comforting old notions. I’m sure this is why there is still the stigma prohibiting gay men from donating blood – why acknowledge that the scares of old are outdated when you can fall back on time-honored homophobia?
To summarize, I liked this book. It’s very easy to draw parallels between the cholera outbreak in Victorian London and epidemics that exist in modern society. We’d do well to remember that epidemics always have a social element to them, and they have a way of shaping history in the same way that wars do; they’re just much harder to predict.
