2014 Shaping the Future of New York Fridays: 11:00-1:45 Boylan Hall, 2231

            Residents on Broad Street accepted the Miasma theory because it was the most readily used explanation, despite its dearth of supporting evidence. It is very easy however to blame the environment rather than human activity, just as we discussed in class, because human activity implies that we could change the outcomes of illness. The implementation of miasma theory had only exacerbated the spread of cholera. Believing all smell was disease, the Thames River became a sewage dump in efforts to rid homes of excretions and contaminated air. Although he held the unpopular opinion John Snow continued to build on his theory that contaminated water and not air was the vector for cholera.

            One week after the outbreak of cholera in Soho was when its turning point began with the removal of the Broad Street pump handle. It was the first time an informed intervention had been made based on a scientifically sound theory surrounding cholera. The removal of the pump managed to bring a decline to the outbreak as well as prevent a second outbreak. It is interesting to see that such a simple intervention can bring the end to such a lethal disease.

It seems as though Johnson enjoys repeatedly playing on the irony of the situation that in an attempt to fix the problem, Edwin Chadwick had unknowingly made the problem much worse.

“This is the great irony of Chadwick’s life: in the process of inventing the whole idea of a social safety net, he unwittingly sent thousands of Londoners to an early grave.”

It also goes hand in hand with the amount of influence the miasma theory actually had. Looking back and thinking what was going on in their minds though, it is hard to blame the city’s leaders. As Morris Hedaya mentioned in his post, there are many diseases that are in fact airborne. What the people devoted to the miasma theory did not realize was the evolutionary purpose of being able to smell bad odors, which is to prevent people from ingesting the source of these bad odors. Little did they know, most of the time, smelling rotting flesh did not actually cause disease. Chadwick had thought getting rid of the smell would prevent disease, but he forgot that flushing the cesspools into the river would cause so many to actually ingest the disease causing agent.

How many times has the thoughts of the government and the fear ridden people lead to wrong decisions? How many times did the stigma of being poor carry over into a deserved death by plague? Apparently, a lot.
As I was reading the end chapters I was confused as to how many people assumed the poor were poor from choice, were living in filth by choice. Whitehead was a physician and religious man that we even willing to believe that the poor and destitute could have been the deserved receivers of this disease yet his cases said otherwise when the rich and “pristine” died. The environment was conducive to these deaths with their cramped quarters and limited sewage systems but the people were not to blame. In fact, now we recognize that “squatter communities… are where the developing world goes to get out of poverty” (Johnson).
I also found it amazing this spread of disease was exactly what helped contribute to modern cities. People had slowly developed to accomodate these larger populations and led to some of the advances we know today. The chapter focusing on risks in living cities did instill a sense of fear in me though, that we are so helpless if it comes to things such as nuclear warfare. Yet it also comforted me to know that biological warfare could be halted in a matter of days, that we had gotten so advanced from the times of London’s cholera outbreak. Admittedly, there are still diseases we must work to find cures for such as cholera and HIV but the advances made in modern medicine and city society is amazing.