John Snow's Documents

Items on this page are Documents related to, but not written by, John Snow.

2 March 1844

William Snow's Commercial Temperance Hotel.

PDF from photocopy, courtesy of Sue Rigby, City of York Libraries, via Nigel Paneth. Yorkshire Assizes. Snow's Commercial Temperance Hotel, 3, Low Ousegate, York William Snow respectfully solicits the attention of those who have Business at the Assizes, to the very convenient Situation of his Establishment, it being Two Minutes' Walk from the Railway Station and the Castle, and within a short distance of the Cathedral, the Yorkshire Museum, and other places of public attraction. York, Feb. 28, 1844.

26 November 1853

Mortality from cholera in districts supplied by water companies

Page 1 of the Weekly Return of Births and Deaths in London for the week ending 26 November 1853. The table at the bottom of the first page makes it clear that a population of over 300,000 people in South London were served by two water companies still in active competition. This area constituted the inter-mixed watersheds of the Lambeth and Southwark & Vauxhall (S&V) water companies. This return, however, did not appear until the 1853 cholera epidemic was in its fourteenth week, too late for Snow to begin inquiries. He had no idea at this point if such an opportunity to add supporting evidence for his theory of the communication of cholera would reappear the following year. If cholera did not come in 1854, S&V would likely have shifted its supply source from Battersea to purer Thames water drawn above the Tedington Lock before the next visitation. There was no natural experiment if both companies provided essentially the same quality of water.

19 June 1858

Obituary notice for John Snow

PDF from photocopy, courtesy of the Taubman Medical Library, University of Michigan. We announce with great pain and grief the death of our distinguished and estimable brother, Dr. Snow. [remaining transcript pending]

1 March 1859

Eulogy for John Snow, Royal Medical & Chirurgical Society

PDF from photocopy, courtesy of the National Library of Medicine. Dr. John Snow, so well known in this Society, died on the 16th of June last, at the age of forty-five. [full transcript pending]