The Real Story of John Snow

While you might hear the name John Snow and think of dragons and unfruitful endings. There was a real life physician whose efforts saved lives and built the foundation for modern epidemiology.

Hosted by: Hank Green

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[ninjafruitchilled]

I pass by his grave quite often, out in Brompton Cemetery in west London. We salute your unappreciated efforts, John Snow.

[tamikuru]

I'm always amazed when I get reminded that not drinking sewage wasn't common sense some time ago...

[Sciencerely]

As a human biologist and researcher, I cannot emphasise enough how important the development of sanitation in major cities was. All of us know that numerous people died due to the lack of sewage systems (and there have been roughly 7 major cholera worldwide outbreaks in the last 200 years). Although you might think that cholera infections are not as prevalent anymore it is estimated that each year there are still 1.3 million to 4.0 million cases of cholera, and 21 000 to 143 000 deaths worldwide (would really love to make a video about that)! I really hope that we could raise more awareness for this issue. Feel free to ask me anything about this topic or stem cells (since I am conducting research in this field)!

[vibid]

For anyone who wants to learn more, Extra History did a series on John Snow's fight against Cholera, and how it gave way to not only modern epidemiology, but the modern sanitary movement.

[Benzy]

Britain’s General Board of Health: YOU KNOW NOTHING JOHN SNOW!

[Corn_DOG]

Snow is the father of my field of GIS too! He is widely consider the first person to make a geographic information system (GIS) to map the outbreaks for informed conclusions based on geographic data

[curiousworld]

I read a fascinating book on the subject, 'The Ghost Map', by Steven Johnson. I remember that workers at a nearby brewery didn't catch cholera as often, as they drank beer - which, as I recall, the fermentation process killed the bacteria. There was also a demographer who aided greatly in Snow's theory.

[iheartbusterk]

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ John Snow! His embrace of germ theory in the era of miasma theory is truly mindblowing. Truly a person with a major contribution to helping public health.

[spicy]

this is the only John Snow I've ever heard of.

[elijahcobb]

One of my favorite historical figures. I wrote a whole musical about him.

That's not a joke, I actually spent 3 months writing a musical about him.

[TheLunaLockhart]

"But mostly, he's remembered for the way he fought cholera."
with his FISTS

[totherik]

We learned about John Snow at the univerity(i studied Geodesy/Land survey) :) The map he made, and the way he used it for problem solving was an important precursor of modern day GIS (Geographic Information System).

[AndromedaCripps]

I think that they used the John Snow water pump story in the show The Frankenstein Chronicles. Part of the show revolves around a single community getting extremely sick, and by talking to multiple people from the community, Sean Bean's character tracks it all down to a single water pump. Of course, to fit this into the show, it wasn't human waste in the water that caused the problem, but human corpses. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[Tinderchaff]

At 2:30 if you look in the background of the photo of the pump, you can see the pub named in his honour. The street was renamed Broadwick street and is in Soho, London.

[EverythingScience]

When they call it 'The Real Story of John Snow' instead of 'The Real Story of Your Poop' to trick people into watching 👀

[pancreasnostalgia]

John Snow is one of my favorite figures in medical history. Also, I never watched GoT so I have the opposite problem. When I hear people talking about the character, I think they're talking about the doctor.

[masterimbecile]

John Snow did not work alone in his quest. William Farr and Reverend Henry Whitehead also played instrumental roles. Snow's role in the story is better described as the person who best synthesized the health data. (Info paraphrased from the book "The Ghost Map")

William Farr had been collecting (rather impressively detailed) health data for a while by the time of Snow's investigation, but since he was one of the miasmatists, his data focused on a lot of things related to the miasma theory that unintentionally misled health officials to look in the wrong places (e.g. looking for ventilation near cesspools instead of nearby water supplies).

Reverend Henry Whitehead set out to discredit Snow, but actually ended up disproving his initial suspicion on the water-borne theory. His advantage was that he actually knew many of the victims in the Broad street outbreak and can therefore collect very detailed data, and his findings simply did not jibe with the prevailing miasma theory. His detailed knowledge of the Broad street/ Golden Square neighborhood made him a valuable ally to Snow.

Snow synthesized his own, Farr's, and Whitehead's data and recognized where cholera should've been but wasn't, and where cholera shouldn't have been but was. By fitting his theory to data, instead of his data to theory, he was able to look beyond the erroneous miasma theory.

[uss_]

SciShow: John Snow
Issac Arthur: Winter on Venus
Winter is indeed coming.

[RitaSijelmass]

There's this pub in London's Soho called the John Snow, and now I finally know why!

[farrins]

So for anyone who wants more information on John Snow please, please read Ghost Map by Steven Johnson. It is the best nonfiction book I've ever read! I read it 9 years ago and it's still the ideal I judge other books by. Also the way he tested anaesthesia on himself...pure comedic gold!