England: The Broad Street Pump - You Know Nothing, John Snow - Extra History - Part 1

📜 England's Broad Street Pump - Part 1 - Extra History
Thanks to his mother's support, John Snow rose from humble beginnings as a coal miner's son and apprenticed to a doctor in Newcastle. As a young man, he treated many patients during the cholera epidemic that struck Newcastle. He noticed that the traditional explanation for cholera's spread - miasma from graveyards and swamps - could not explain its appearance in Newcastle where he treated patients. He took that knowledge with him to London, where he formally studied medicine and achieved the highest honors in his profession in only a year. His formal study of anesthesia earned him such great recognition that on two occasions he was trusted to work on the Queen. But then cholera broke out in London again. Snow wanted to prove miasma didn't cause it and find the real cause, so he interviewed patients and doctors across the city. He theorized that the diarrhea which came from cholera also helped to spread it. He even wrote up a case study where one street whose well water mixed with sewage had a huge infection rate while across the street their neighbors with pure well water barely suffered at all. Confident that he had found the cause, he published his findings, but the medical community was not thoroughly convinced.

*Miss an episode in our Broad Street Pump Series?*

Artist: Lilienne Chan I Writer: James Portnow I Voice: Daniel Floyd I Editor: Carrie Floyd

#ExtraHistory #England #History

[ryanharrelson]

Medical history is one of the scariest subjects out there. The amount of times people do things and persist in ways of thinking that we know now to be wrong medically is staggering.

[Rhelling]

Fun fact: Kit Harrington, the actor who plays John Snow is a descendant of John Harrington who invented flush toilet (but sadly the centralized plumbing wasn't all the rage in Victorian England hence Cholera). Seems like the whole family is in a Game of Thrones.

[MichelFialloPerez]

John Snow: "Hey. Hey! You people! Especially you who promoted me and saw my dedication! Why aren't you listening to me now? I'm trying to save everyone's lives! WHY AREN'T YOU LISTENING TO MEEEE???"

Admiral Yi: "Oh, buddy."

[lixp]

John Snow's mom is so cool to recognize her son's potential early on and sacrifice her savings to let him go to school. Kudos to her!

[Kuntyful]

funny enough, I go to Soho very often and regularly walk past the water pump he locked.
The nearest pub is called The John Snow.

[grfrjiglstan]

Seems like 'don't put your drinking wells downstream of your sewage water' should be fairly intuitive. Even if you don't believe in germs, surely the concept of drinking sewage doesn't appeal to you?

[armaniac]

Who was that guy that didn't listen to John It was Walpole.

[Gameknight]

“YOU KNOW NOTHING JOHN SNOW!”
*Little did he know, John knew more than he did.*

[jaypillsbury]

"Here's this cool thing I figured out how to do!"
*shun*
"I did the cool thing again!"
*shun*
"Look, how much evidence do you need to see that I am really good at this? I just proved myself _again!_"
*shun*

Sounding a lot like what happened to Yi, albeit in a different form and for different reasons.

[Hostilenemy]

Cholera me impressed, John Snow.

Yes, yes, I know.

[Duke_of_Lorraine]

Why let a few Game of Thrones references get in the way of a good disease ?

[a.e.m.]

Extra History seems to have a huge quality increase.. or is it just me?

[aaaer]

As a broke person, I want to thank the people supporting them on patreon for voting for these series. It's always fascinating to learn about these events that I have honestly never heard of until now

[CazTheGamerGuy]

John Snow: The Man Who Knows Something Sometimes!


Also: Congrats to the new artist, cheers!

[AlltimeNumbers]

Seriously good guys. Always exciting to see a new Extra History vid in the subscription feed. Thumbs up from us. :)

[extrahistory]

Why wait for Game of Thrones to find out what happened to John Snow? He's seeking the truth on #ExtraHistory right now!

[erttheking]

Bleeding? BLEEDING!? The problem is that they run out of fluids! Medicine was really backwards at the time wasn't it...

[NamelessPlayerOfficial]

I'm impressed by John Snow, more ambitious and more hardworking than most of the political leaders I know, even though he was frowned at... He didn't give up.

[dertchilll]

John snow: a literal prodigy, a guy who is trusted to anesthetize the queen

Also John snow: cholera infects people through water

The medical society: “YOU KNOW NOTHING JOHN SNOW!”

[Merry_Mal]

If anyone is shocked at how stubborn John Snow's fellow doctors are, just remember that in 1865 Ignaz Semmelweis (now a very respected as a doctor and pioneer of antiseptic procedure) was lured into an insane asylum in Vienna. He was locked up and later died in the asylum after he was severely beaten by the guards. What did he do? Told doctors they should wash their hands between patients.Doctors really don't like the idea that what they are doing could be killing somebody.