As with the fist half of the book, I found the reading to be really interesting. Snow’s journey to convince the scientific and political world of his waterborne theory of cholera was frustrating, but eventually rewarding. I thought it was interesting that the one who eventually convinced everyone was Whitehead, who originally opposed the theory. I wonder why it was not the scientific man, but the religious one, who knew the ins and outs of the community, who was able to popularize a theory that had been scoffed at so many times before. It shows us how closely linked the scientific and social scene are, and how societal relationships play a role in something like an epidemic. I liked that Johnson gave Whitehead the credit he deserved.
In the chapter when Johnson wrote about the reasons miasma was so popular, he mentioned an evolutionary reason, suggesting that our sense of smell has evolved so that we avoid unpleasant smells, since they signify microbes. The idea of humans mistaking the “smoke” (the bad smells) for the fire (what was actually dangerous– bacteria) was very intriguing, and is something I definitely need to think about a little more.
