John Snow

John Snow was born in York on 15 March 1813, the eldest son of a labourer. At fourteen he was apprenticed to a surgeon in Newcastle upon Tyne, and during the cholera epidemic of 1831–1832 he treated miners stricken by the disease. He later trained in London and qualified as a physician. Snow was a pioneer of anaesthesia: he studied ether and chloroform scientifically, designed inhalers and gave chloroform to Queen Victoria at the births of Prince Leopold in 1853 and Princess Beatrice in 1857. Most doctors then believed cholera spread through 'miasma', bad air. Snow argued that it was caused by something swallowed in water contaminated with the waste of the sick. In 1849 he published On the Mode of Communication of Cholera. During the Soho outbreak of 1854 he mapped deaths clustered around the Broad Street water pump and persuaded the local authorities to remove its handle. He also compared deaths among households supplied by two water companies, one drawing water from the sewage-laden Thames. His enlarged second edition appeared in 1855. A teetotaller, he died of a stroke on 16 June 1858.

Faith: Faith not well documented. Source: Wikipedia

See also: Robert Koch · Florence Nightingale · Ignaz Semmelweis