John Snow Character Analysis

Snow was a truly consilient thinker […] Snow’s work was constantly building bridges between different disciplines, some of which barely existed as functional sciences in his day, using data on one scale of investigation to make predictions about behavior on other scales.

Snow also recognized the weakness of the contagionist argument. […] Clearly, the cholera was not communicated through sheer proximity. In fact, the most puzzling element of the disease was that it seemed capable of traveling across city blocks, skipping entire houses in the process.

In explaining Snow's battle against the miasma theory and the medical establishment, it's not sufficient to point to his brilliance or his tenacity alone, though no doubt those characteristics played a crucial role. If the dominance of the miasma model was itself shaped by multiple intersecting forces, so, too, was Snow’s ability to see it for the illusion that it was.

Snow's argument was persuasive—and, besides, they had few other options. If Snow was wrong, the neighborhood might go thirsty for a few weeks. If he was right, who knew how many lives they might save? And so, after a quick internal consultation, the Board voted that the Broad Street well should be closed down.

As for influence, it's pretty to think of John Snow unveiling the map before the Epidemiological Society to amazed and thunderous applause, and to glowing reviews in The Lancet the next week. But that's not how it happened. Its persuasiveness seems obvious to us now, living as we do outside the constraints of the miasma paradigm. But when it first began circulating in late 1854 and early 1855, its impact was far from dramatic. Snow himself seems to have thought that his South London Water Works study would ultimately be the centerpiece of his argument, the Broad Street map merely a piece of supporting evidence, a sideshow.

Snow was a truly consilient thinker […] Snow’s work was constantly building bridges between different disciplines, some of which barely existed as functional sciences in his day, using data on one scale of investigation to make predictions about behavior on other scales.

Snow also recognized the weakness of the contagionist argument. […] Clearly, the cholera was not communicated through sheer proximity. In fact, the most puzzling element of the disease was that it seemed capable of traveling across city blocks, skipping entire houses in the process.

In explaining Snow's battle against the miasma theory and the medical establishment, it's not sufficient to point to his brilliance or his tenacity alone, though no doubt those characteristics played a crucial role. If the dominance of the miasma model was itself shaped by multiple intersecting forces, so, too, was Snow’s ability to see it for the illusion that it was.

Snow's argument was persuasive—and, besides, they had few other options. If Snow was wrong, the neighborhood might go thirsty for a few weeks. If he was right, who knew how many lives they might save? And so, after a quick internal consultation, the Board voted that the Broad Street well should be closed down.

As for influence, it's pretty to think of John Snow unveiling the map before the Epidemiological Society to amazed and thunderous applause, and to glowing reviews in The Lancet the next week. But that's not how it happened. Its persuasiveness seems obvious to us now, living as we do outside the constraints of the miasma paradigm. But when it first began circulating in late 1854 and early 1855, its impact was far from dramatic. Snow himself seems to have thought that his South London Water Works study would ultimately be the centerpiece of his argument, the Broad Street map merely a piece of supporting evidence, a sideshow.