John Snow
John Snow was born on the 15th of March 1813 in York, England. He grew up in a neighborhood that sat directly beside the River Ouse. His father worked at a local coal yard where barges constantly delivered fuel from the Yorkshire coalfield. The streets around his home were among the poorest in the city and frequently flooded. Snow experienced unsanitary conditions and contamination during his childhood years. Most of the streets were dirty and the river carried runoff water from market squares and cemeteries. This early exposure to filth shaped his future observations about disease transmission.
At age fourteen he secured a medical apprenticeship with William Hardcastle near Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In 1832 he encountered a cholera epidemic for the first time while working as a surgeon-apothecary apprentice. He treated many victims of the disease in Killingworth, a coal-mining village. This experience gave him practical knowledge that would later define his career. By 1836 he enrolled at the Hunterian school of medicine on Great Windmill Street in London. He adjusted to teetotalism and signed an abstinence pledge in 1835. He also became a vegetarian who tried to drink only distilled water.
Snow began experimenting with ether in 1843 to understand its effects on respiration. Only one year after ether was introduced to Britain he published a short work titled On the Inhalation of the Vapor of Ether. This publication served as a guide for its use by other physicians. Within two years of ether being introduced Snow was considered the most accomplished anaesthetist in Britain. London's principal surgeons suddenly wanted his assistance for their operations.
He studied chloroform which was introduced in 1847 by James Young Simpson. Snow realized that chloroform was much more potent and required greater precision when administering it. His first major lesson came from Hannah Greener who died on the 28th of January 1848. The fifteen-year-old patient lost her pulse quickly after receiving chloroform during a procedure to cut her toenail. She had been administered the substance by covering her face with a cloth dipped in the chemical. After investigating her death and several others that followed he concluded that chloroform must be handled carefully. He published these findings in a letter to The Lancet.
On the 7th of April 1853 Queen Victoria asked John Snow to administer chloroform during the delivery of her eighth child named Leopold. He repeated the procedure for the delivery of her daughter Beatrice in 1857. This royal endorsement led to wider acceptance of obstetrical anesthesia among the public. Snow treated seventy-seven obstetric patients with chloroform over time. He applied the drug at the second stage of labor without putting the patients fully to sleep. They felt only the first half of the contraction while remaining on the border of unconsciousness.
Snow believed it would be safer if another person not the surgeon applied the anesthetic. Chloroform was considered unethical by many physicians and even the Church of England before this event. His work helped establish the safety and utility of using drugs to manage pain during childbirth. He designed a mask specifically to administer chloroform safely to his patients. These innovations allowed women to undergo surgical and obstetric procedures without severe distress or pain.
In 1854 a cholera outbreak struck London's Soho district. Snow identified the source of the outbreak as the public water pump on Broad Street. He talked to local residents with the help of Henry Whitehead to trace the infection path. Although his chemical examination of a water sample from the pump did not conclusively prove its danger his studies were convincing enough. The local council disabled the well pump by removing its handle force rod. This action has been commonly credited as ending the outbreak though Snow observed that the epidemic may have already been in rapid decline.
He later used a dot map to illustrate the cluster of cholera cases around the pump. The map showed homes supplied by the Southwark and Vauxhall Waterworks Company had a cholera rate fourteen times higher than those supplied by Lambeth Waterworks Company. The Southwark company took water from sewage-polluted sections of the Thames while Lambeth obtained water from cleaner Seething Wells upriver. His study became a major event in the history of public health and geography. It is regarded as the founding event of the science of epidemiology.
After the cholera epidemic subsided government officials replaced the Broad Street pump handle. They responded only to the urgent threat posed to the population and afterward rejected Snow's theory. To accept his proposal would have meant indirectly accepting the fecal-oral route of disease transmission which was too unpleasant for most people to contemplate. It was not until 1866 that William Farr one of Snow's chief opponents realized the validity of his diagnosis. Farr investigated another outbreak of cholera at Bromley by Bow and issued immediate orders that unboiled water was not to be drunk.
Farr denied Snow's explanation of how exactly the contaminated water spread cholera though he did accept that water played a role. Some of the statistical data Farr collected helped promote John Snow's views over time. Public health officials recognize the political struggles in which reformers often become entangled during such crises. During the annual Pumphandle Lecture members of the John Snow Society remove and replace a pump handle to symbolize continuing challenges for advances in public health.
Snow lived at 18 Sackville Street in London from 1852 until his death in 1858. He became a vegetarian at age seventeen and was a teetotaller throughout much of his life. He embraced a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet by supplementing vegetables with dairy products and eggs for eight years. In his thirties he became vegan but his health deteriorated due to a renal disorder. He attributed this decline to his vegan diet so he took up meat-eating and drinking wine again. He continued drinking pure water via boiling throughout his adult life and never married.
On the 10th of June 1858 Snow suffered a stroke while working in his London office. He was forty-five years old at the time and never recovered from the event. He died six days later on the 16th of June 1858 and was buried in Brompton Cemetery. It has been speculated that his premature death may have been related to frequent exposure to anesthetic gases. He administered and experimented with ether chloroform ethyl nitrate carbon disulfide benzene bromoform ethyl bromide and dichloroethane during his lifetime.
Continue Browsing
Common questions
When and where was John Snow born?
John Snow was born on the 15th of March 1813 in York, England. He grew up in a neighborhood beside the River Ouse with poor sanitation conditions.
What did John Snow discover about the 1854 cholera outbreak in London?
John Snow identified the source of the 1854 cholera outbreak as the public water pump on Broad Street. His dot map showed that homes supplied by the Southwark and Vauxhall Waterworks Company had a cholera rate fourteen times higher than those supplied by Lambeth Waterworks Company.
How did John Snow contribute to the field of anesthesia?
John Snow became the most accomplished anaesthetist in Britain within two years of introducing ether to the country. He designed a mask specifically to administer chloroform safely and administered it during the delivery of Queen Victoria's children Leopold and Beatrice.
Why did government officials reject John Snow's theory after the 1854 epidemic?
Government officials rejected John Snow's theory because accepting it would have meant indirectly acknowledging the fecal-oral route of disease transmission. They removed the Broad Street pump handle only to respond to the urgent threat posed to the population rather than to validate his diagnosis.
When and how did John Snow die?
John Snow died on the 16th of June 1858 six days after suffering a stroke while working in his London office. He was forty-five years old at the time and is buried in Brompton Cemetery.