Location : Cleveland, OH
This is one of those books that I have considered reading many times. I finally decided to read it after listening to the author speak at Business Development Day at Lotusphere. In fact, I took the time to have a quick chat with him after the Opening Session. If you get the chance, I highly recommend taking the opportunity to hear him speak as he has an excellent topic and wonderful stage presence.
Contents:
Preface
Chapter 1: The Night-Soil Men
Chapter 2: Eyes Sunk, Lips Dark Blue
Chapter 3: The Investigation
Chapter 4: That Is To Say, Jo Has Not Yet Died
Chapter 5: All Smell Is Disease
Chapter 6: Building the Case
Chapter 7: The Pump Handle
Chapter 8: The Ghost Map
Epilogue; Broad Street Revisited
Steven Johnson's book, The Ghost Map, tells the story of a cholera outbreak, Dr. John Snow, clergyman Henry Whitehead, and the Soho area of London in 1854. At the time, London was the largest city in the world, with a population of about 2.4 million. The Soho area was one of the most densely populated, with 432 people per acre. Steven Johnson reports that Manhattan, today, only has about 100 people per acre. With that many people packed into a few city blocks, disease could run rampant through the area. And so it did. One evening, a woman throws her sick baby's excrement into the cesspool in the basement of their building. With that normal act, she unleashes the worst outbreak of cholera in London's history. John Snow, a local but prominent doctor, starts to investigate the outbreak, using his theory that it is transmitted through the water. Unknown to him, Henry Whitehead, a clergyman in a local parish, is also tracking down the cause of cholera, but he is basing his investigation using the conventional thought that cholera is transmitted through "miasma" (bad smells).
Dr. Snow, while a very famous doctor (he advanced the use of ether and chloroform as anesthetics, among other things) was not a resident of Soho. Henry Whitehead lived in and knew almost everyone in Soho, as he routinely made his rounds of the neighborhood, in addition to seeing the residents in his church. While they came from different backgrounds and held opposing views on cholera, they met and pooled their knowledge. Whitehead came around to backing Snow's theory that cholera was waterborne. John Snow is credited with creating a groundbreaking map, the Ghost Map, based on his research. After their work together, Whitehead and Snow became very good friends.
Steven Johnson takes the reader on a fascinating tour of 1850's London. He explains the city, the people, and the prevailing water policies of most large cities at the time. As the story centers on Dr. Snow and Henry Whitehead, he provides you with enough background on those two people that you have an excellent understanding of how they came to that one section of London to combat one of the worse urban outbreaks of cholera. I enjoyed his descriptions of the work and home life, not only in Soho, but also in greater London. And he kept the reader interested in the research that John Snow was undertaking, as it was important, innovative work. While the majority of the book is dedicated to a specific cholera outbreak, the last part of the book focuses on the modern city and the issues that it faces. I thought that a lot of that part was good, but it seemed a little out of place with the rest. It felt as though Johnson was stretching to make a point. I understood where he was trying to go, but I couldn't make a connection. That being said, I still think that this is a great book.
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