John Snow, Asiatic Cholera and the inductive-deductive method - republished

Lecture 17: aftermath

The Snow series is an educational course. We hope you will recognise our efforts by donating to TTE or becoming a paying subscriber, as writing the series took a lot of time and effort.

The publication On the Mode of Communication of Cholera, 2nd edition, 1855 (MCC 2), which Snow funded out of his own pocket, was not a runaway success. It sold less than 60 copies. The Lancet’s review of the book was as follows:

Dr Snow claims to have discovered that the law of propagation of cholera is the drinking of sewage water. His theory, of course, displaces all other theories. (…) In riding his hobby very hard, he has fallen down through a gully-hole and has never since been able to get out again. And to Dr. Snow, an impossible one: so there we leave him.

The fact is that the well whence Dr. Snow draws all sanitary truth is the main sewer. His specus, or den, is a drain. 

The Lancet June 23, 1855,

Snow’s work was set aside and forgotten after hi…