Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: On the Mode of Communication of Cholera

  • Epidemic cholera and Joseph William Bazalgette

    JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom Rampant epidemics of cholera took many lives in the Victorian era. These epidemics were finally overcome with the discovery that cholera was a waterborne infection and by massive reconstruction of the sewers. Sir Joseph William Bazalgette (1819-1891) (Fig 1), known as the “Sewer King,”1 was born in Enfield, London. His…

  • Patients and society: The big divide

    J.M.S. PearceUnited Kingdom But society has now fairly got the better of individuality; and the danger which threatens human nature, is not the excess, but the deficiency, of personal impulses and preferences.John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), On Liberty, chapter 3, 1859 John Snow’s classical publication, On the Mode of Communication of Cholera, 1849, exemplified the undoubted benefits…