Everything about John Snow Physician totally explained
John Snow (
16 March 1813 –
16 June 1858) was a British physician and a leader in the adoption of
anaesthesia and medical
hygiene. He is considered to be one of the fathers of
epidemiology, because of his work in tracing the source of a
cholera outbreak in Soho, England, in 1854.
Early life and education
Snow was born
16 March 1813 in
York,
England. He was the first of nine children born to William and Frances Snow in their North Street home. His neighbourhood was one of the poorest in the city and was always in danger of flooding because of its proximity to the
River Ouse. His father worked in the local coal yards, which were constantly replenished from the Yorkshire coalfields via barges on the Ouse. Snow was baptised
Anglican at the church of
All Saints, North Street.
Snow studied in York until the age of 14, when he was apprenticed to William Hardcastle, a
surgeon in
Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He later worked as a colliery surgeon. Between 1833 and 1836 he was an assistant in practice, first in
Burnopfield,
Durham, and then in
Pateley Bridge, North Yorkshire. In October 1836 he enrolled as a student at the Hunterian school of medicine in Great Windmill Street, London. A year later, he began working at the
Westminster Hospital and was admitted a member of the
Royal College of Surgeons of England on
2 May 1838. He graduated from the
University of London in December 1844, and was admitted to the
Royal College of Physicians in 1850.
Anaesthesia
Snow was one of the first physicians to study and calculate dosages for the use of
ether and also
chloroform as surgical
anaesthesia. He personally administered chloroform to
Queen Victoria when she gave birth to the last two of her nine children,
Leopold in 1853 and
Beatrice in 1857. This led to wider public acceptance of
obstetric anaesthesia. Snow published an article on ether in 1847 entitled
On the Inhalation of the Vapor of Ether. A longer work was published posthumously in 1858 entitled
On Chloroform and Other Anaesthetics, and Their Action and Administration.
Cholera
Snow was a skeptic of the then-dominant
miasma theory that stated held that diseases such as cholera or the Black Death were caused by pollution or a noxious form of "bad air". The
germ theory wasn't widely accepted at this time, so he was unaware of the mechanism by which the disease was transmitted, but evidence led him to believe that it wasn't due to breathing foul air. He first publicized his theory in an essay
On the Mode of Communication of Cholera in 1849. In 1855 a second edition was published, with a much more elaborate investigation of the effect of the water-supply in the
Soho,
London epidemic of 1854.
By talking to local residents (with the help of
Reverend Henry Whitehead), he identified the source of the outbreak as the public water pump on Broad Street (now
Broadwick Street). Although Snow's chemical and microscope examination of a sample of the
Broad Street pump water wasn't able to conclusively prove its danger, his studies of the pattern of the disease were convincing enough to persuade the local council to disable the well pump by removing its handle. Although this action has been popularly reported as ending the outbreak, the epidemic may have already been in rapid decline, as explained by Snow himself:
statistics to illustrate the connection between the quality of the source of water and cholera cases. He showed that companies taking water from
sewage-
polluted sections of the
Thames delivered water to homes with an increased incidence of cholera. Snow's study was a major event in the
history of
public health, and can be regarded as the founding event of the
science of
epidemiology.
In Snow's own words:
Political Controversy
After the cholera epidemic had subsided, government officials replaced the Broad Street Handle Pump. They responded only to the urgent threat posed to the population, and afterwards they rejected Snow's theory. To accept his proposal would be indirectly accepting the oral-fecal method transmission of disease, which was too unpleasant for most of the public.
Public health officials today recognize the political struggles that reformers often get entangled in. During the Annual Pumphandle Lecture in England, members of the John Snow Society remove and then replace a pump handle to symbolize the continuing challenges that face public health advancements.
Later life
Snow was a vegetarian and an ardent
teetotaler and believed in drinking pure water (via
boiling) throughout his adult life. He never married.
At the age of 45, Snow suffered a stroke while working in his London office on 10 June 1858. He never recovered, dying on
16 June 1858 and is buried in
Brompton Cemetery.
Memorials
There is a plaque commemorating Snow and his 1854 study in the place of the water pump on Broad Street (now Broadwick Street) with a water pump with its handle removed, near what is now "The John Snow"
public house. The spot where the pump stood is covered with red granite.
In York, there's a
blue plaque to Snow on the west end of the Park Inn, a hotel in North Street.
John Snow was voted in a poll of British doctors in 2003 as the greatest physician of all time.
Snow gives his name to
John Snow College, founded in 2001 on the
University of Durham's Queen's Campus in
Stockton-on-Tees.
Snow is one of the heraldic supporters of the
Royal College of Anaesthetists.
The public health consulting firm
John Snow, Inc is named after him.
Further Information
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