Bibliographical Miscellany

This portion of the Web site will be updated regularly. If you have suggestions for material to be included, please send them to:

Peter Vinten-Johansen
vintenjo@mail.msu.edu


Book Reviews:
  • Barnett, Richard on Stephanie J. Snow, Blessed Days of Anaesthesia: How Anaesthetics Changed the World (2008); [review appeared in Social History of Medicine 23 (August 2010): 428-29.]
    Download: SNOW,BARNETTONBLESSEDDAYS
  • Barnett, Richard on Stephanie J. Snow, Operations Without Pain: The Practice and Science of Anaesthesia in Victorian Britain online review at http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1871698 posted on 1 April 2007
  • Brody, Howard on Sandra Hempel, The Strange Case of the Broad Street Pump: John Snow and the Mystery of Cholera; first printed in England as The Medical Detective: John Snow and the Mystery of Cholera (2006)
    Download: PDF
  • Finkelstein, Richard A. on Sandra Hempel, Steven Johnson, The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic - And How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World (Johnson); and The Strange Case of the Broad Street Pump (Hempel); [an edited version of this review was published in the New England Journal of Medicine 356 (12 April 2007): 1593-94.]
    Download: PDF
  • Zuck, David on Stephanie J. Snow, Operations Without Pain: The Practice and Science of Anaesthesia in Victorian Britain online review at http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/paper/zuck.html posted on 14 February 2006
Extracts from Books and Articles about John Snow:

There is a staggering amount of disagreement about what Snow ostensibly did, and when he did it, particularly (but hardly exclusively) with respect to his activities during the 1854 London cholera epidemic. This portion of the Web site provides some samples of this disagreement from both scholarly and popular works written since his death in 1858. You are encouraged to compare the views of these commentators with Snow's own accounts of his thinking and doings, as set forth in the "Snow's Works" portion of the Web site.

  • Besant, Walter, London in the Nineteenth Century; Not precisely about Snow, but a discussion of the private water companies supplying London in Snow's time.
    Download: PDF
  • Brown, Peter E., Anesthesia and Analgesia; extracts from P. E. Brown's article, "Another Look at John Snow" (1964), in which Brown argues that Snow, the epidemiologist, was far inferior to Snow, the anesthetist.
    Download: PDF
  • Garrett, Laurie, The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance; 1995. On Snow, who ostensibly removed the handle on the Broad Street pump in 1849 and "mapped of cholera cases and traced their water supplies" in 1854, and his influence on the emergence of sanitary measures.
    Download: PDF
  • Glinert, Ed, The London Compendium; 2004. On the John Snow Pub and Snow's cholera investigations in 1853-54.
    Download: PDF
  • Henig, Robin Marantz, The People's Health. A Memoir of Public Health and its Evolution at Harvard; 1997. On Snow as a hero among public health experts because he ostensibly halted a cholera outbreak after noting the deaths on a map, then removed the handle of the Broad Street pump, the water for which was provided by a private water company drawing its supply from a polluted section of the River Thames.
    Download: PDF
  • McNeill, William H., Plagues and People; 1976. On the lack of influence of Snow's 1854 cholera investigation "in a district of central London."
    Download: PDF
  • Picard, Liza, Victorian London - The Life of a City 1840-1870; 2006. On John Snow's early years as a surgeon, his use of chloroform in midwifery, and his interventions in London's mid-century cholera epidemics.
    Download: PDF
  • Porter, Roy, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity; 1997. On Snow's intervention in the Broad Street epidemic as ostensibly providing "confirmation of his theory," Snow's testimony before a Select Committee on the House of Commons as effecting changes in sanitary reforms, yet continued confusion about the "causation of urban epidemics."
    Download: PDF
  • Porter, Roy, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity; 1997. On the "key event" in the use of chloroform in obstetrics: Snow's administration during Queen Victoria's delivery in April 1853.
    Download: PDF
  • Richardson, Benjamin Ward, On Chloroform and Other Anæsthetics: Their Action and Administration; extracts from Richardson's introductory essay, "The life of John Snow" (1858), on Snow's interests in cholera, other epidemic diseases, and London medical societies where he discussed those interests.
    Download: PDF
  • Satcher, David, Family Practice Report ; 1997. On the origin of the interrogative, "Where is the handle on this Broad Street pump?"
    Download: PDF
  • Wohl, Anthony S., Endangered Lives. Public Health in Victorian Britain; 1983. On Snow's application of Budd's theory to explain the London cholera epidemics of 1849 and 1854.
    Download: PDF

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