Book by Mr. G., Tailor From The Lewis Family

As discussed earlier in the book, Mr. G, a tailor who lived up from the Lewis family, died as a result of cholera, as well as his son. While John Snow was continuing with his investigation, he wanted to speak to Mr. G’s surviving family, but came to realize that they had passed away. “Their late-night thirst for Broad Street water had destroyed them all”. In further research and interviews, John Snow found out that some of the other cholera victims living on Cross Street had gotten their water from the Broad Street pump, even though his findings weren’t proof enough.

In the meantime, Whitehead spent more time with the victims of cholera and because furious at the fact that the wealthy population claimed that the poor people have brought this disease to themselves. On September 7th, the board of governors had a meeting where John Snow spoke insisting that the community needed to remove the pump as soon as possible.

As a consequence of this, the board was skeptical, mainly because everyone loved the Broad Street water. On the morning of September 8th, the Broad Street pump had been removed even though none of the newspapers reported so.

As the days went on, it was clear that the worst of the outbreak had ended, even though some people were still getting the disease. “Dozens would die over the next week, but clearly the worst was over” . At first, Henry Whitehead thought Snow’s idea of the pump removal was foolish and useless to the point where he disproved the waterborne theory of cholera, but later on, as Whitehead continued with his research, he became aware of the lack of correlation between sanitary conditions and mortality rates among the families living in these conditions.

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As Whitehead continued with his research and data about the cholera outbreak continued to pile up, he went from opposing Snow’s theory to begin to believe it. “As Whitehead tabulated his initial numbers, the case against the pump looked powerful indeed. Among the pump-water-drinking population, the rates of infection were along the lines that Snow had outlined in his original survey: for every two Broad Street drinkers who were not affected, there were three who fell ill…

Whitehead found himself confronting the stubborn fact that choosing to drink from the well increased your odds of infection sevenfold”. The St. James Vestry Committee hypnotized that, just as John Snow had said before due to his research and interviews, the cholera outbreak was caused because of the contamination of the Broad Street pump. The Board of Health committee was so blinded by the Miasma Theory (disease was caused by the presence of miasma in the air, which were inhaled and caused the disease) that they couldn’t accept any theory that was different from it. Going back to the Lewis family, after Thomas Lewis was ill and died, Sarah Lewis began emptying his feces into the cesspool, infecting the Broad Street pump once again. If it weren’t because of Snow demanding to close the pump and removing the pump handle from the houses, the outbreak would have continued.

Shortly after the pump handle was removed, Edmund Cooper, an engineer started his research on London’s sewer commission and thus, he created a map of the outbreak of cholera including the city’s sewer lines that later on became a milestone in epidemiology. On the other hand, Snow began making his own map tracing each victim’s proximity to the Broad Street pump emphasizing the waterborne theory (cholera [or any disease] being spread by water).Thanks to Snow’s ghost map, that also became a milestone in epidemiology, Henry Whitehead might not have been converted to the waterborne theory and therefore, convinced the St. James Vestry Committee to conclude that contaminated water was the cause of the spread of the cholera virus. A couple years later, partly because of Snow’s research, the London municipal government decided to build a new sewer system. There was further on another cholera outbreak in the east end of London where Whitehead and Farr took on the investigation and always credited Snow for his waterborne theory of cholera.

The author moves on to the contemporary time, where cities show no signs of disappearing in terms of disease spreading. “But there is much that Whitehead would recognize in the streets of Soho today, even though the buildings have been replaced and the rents have risen… The streets feel alive, precisely because they are animated by the intersecting paths of so many separate human lives. There is safety and energy and possibility in those intersections, and not a looming fear of death. It is part of the legacy of the battle fought on those streets 150 years ago. Perhaps it is even the most important part”. The author proceeds to compare the population rate in urban areas 150 years ago versus now. Also, he mentions that living in a city has big advantages such as higher life expectancy in urban areas in contrast to rural. To a certain extent, Snow and Whitehead made the contemporary urban life possible. Urbanization is inevitable and cities could suffer potential harms but trusting strong public health systems can help to sustain urban life.