Interpretive Studies

No scholarly work is definitive since scholarship is an on-going process, ideally conducted in a spirit of collaboration and the free exchange of ideas. This portion of the John Snow Archive and Research Companion features interpretive studies of Snow and his contemporaries that supplement the argument and material presented in Cholera, Chloroform, and the Science of Medicine. We will consider, and post, any scholarly study, including those that challenge arguments in our biography.

John Snow

  • J. P. Vandenbroucke, H. M. Eelkman Rooda, H. Beukers, "Who made John Snow a Hero?" American Journal of Epidemiology 133 (May 1991): 967-73.
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  • Anthony Ashcroft, "John Snow, Victorian physician." Chapter 16, Medicine in Northumbria. Essays on the History of Medicine in the North East of England. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Pybus Society for the History and Bibliography of Medicine, 1993.
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  • Thomas Snow, "Propagation of cholera" Times (26 September 1885), 6, col. B.
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  • Thomas Snow, "Dr. Snow on the communication of cholera" Times (20 November 1885), 4, col. F.
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  • Editors, "Netten Radcliffe proved what Snow could not" Times (13 November 1885), 9, cols. C and D.
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  • Stephanie J. Snow, "John Snow: the making of a hero?" Lancet 372 (5 July 2008): 22-23.
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  • Shino Shiode, "Revisiting John Snow’s map: network-based spatial demarcation of cholera area." International Journal of Geographical Information Science 26 (January 2012): 133-50.
  • Michael Price, "Dr John Snow and an early investigation of groundwater contamination." In J. D. Mather, ed. 200 Years of British Hydrogeology. Special publications, #225. London: Geological Society, 2004 .
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  • Jan P. Vandenbroucke, "Changing images of John Snow in the history of epidemiology," Sozial- und Präventivmedicin 46 (2001): 288-293.
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  • Howard Brody, Michael Rip, Peter Vinten-Johansen, Nigel Paneth, and Stephen Rachman, "Map-making and myth-making in Broad Street: the London cholera epidemic, 1854." Lancet 356 (1 July 2000): 64-68.
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  • Peter Vinten-Johansen, "In fairness to Snow" (19 October 2013). An essay commemorating the 200th anniversary of John Snow's birth on 15 March 1813. Click on PDF for a word-processing version of the essay (visible URLs for links to Online references); click on Study Detail for web transcription with imbedded links. If you download the PDF, you should view or re-open the document in Adobe Reader to activate the links..
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  • David Zuck, "Snow, Empson and the Barkers of Bath," Anæsthesia 56 (March 2001): 227-30.
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  • Henry Connor & David Zuck, "A very rare ether vaporizer designed by John Snow," History of Anaesthesia Society, Proceedings, 41 (2009): 105-22. Paper based on a presentation at the 2009 Summer Scientific Meeting, held at the Hilton Bath City Motel, Bath (UK), 29-30 May 2009.
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  • David Zuck, "John Snow and paracentesis of the thorax," History of Anaesthesia Society, Proceedings 30 (July 2002): 54-59..
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  • Richard H. Ellis, "Inhalers of Dr John Snow: his marks and his score," an abstract of a paper delivered at the annual conference of the History of Anaesthesia Society in Huddersfield (UK); Proceedings 8b (June 1990): 81.
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  • Peter Vinten-Johansen and David Zuck, "John Snow's Annus Mirabilis. Ether, consilience, and inhalation anaesthesia: the making of a medical specialty" (24 December 2013). An essay commemorating the 200th anniversary of Snow's birth.
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  • Rod K. Calverley, "An early ether vaporizer designed by John Snow. A Treasure of the Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology." The History of Anesthesia. Third International Symposium, Proceedings (March 1992): 91-99.
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  • D'Arcy Power, "Snow, John (1813-1858)," in Sir Sidney Lee, ed., Dictionary of National Biography 53 (Macmillan 1898): 207-08.
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  • Edvard Gotfredsen, "John Snow, anæstesiologiens grundlægger [the founder of anaesthesiology]." Copenhagen: Novo Industri A/S, 16 June 1958.
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  • Nigel Paneth and Paul Fine, "The art of medicine. The singular science of John Snow." Lancet 381 (13 April 2013): 1267-68.
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  • Narushige Shiode, Shino Shiode, Elodie Rod Thatcher, Sanjay Rana, and Peter Vinten-Johansen, "The mortality rates and the space-time patterns of John Snow's cholera epidemic map," International Journal of Health Geographics 14:21 (June 2015), 16 online pages.
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  • Marcos Falcone, Julia Koschinsky, Peter Vinten-Johansen, Thomas Coleman, Luc Anselin, "John Snow & the cholera epidemic in mid-19th century London: 8 datasets with documentation for use in GeoDa." 9 March 2023 (version 4).
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  • Marcos Falcone, Julia Koschinsky, Peter Vinten-Johansen, "How plausible is an explanation? 'Experimental' research designs in mid-19th century London to test competing explanations of cholera." A guide for research.
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  • Benjamin W. Richardson, "The Life of John Snow, M.D." (1858). Richardson placed this biographical essay at the front of On Chloroform and Other Anæsthetics.
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  • Howard Brody, "Cholera in 1849 and the Biopsychosocial Model: Historical Analysis or Anachronism? (2003)".
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  • Peter Vinten-Johansen and David Zuck, "1847--John Snow's annus mirabilis, year of consilience" (2005). Keynote lecture at the 12th annual spring meeting of the Anesthesia History Association, Birmingham, Alabama. .
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  • , The Case Books of Dr. John Snow—Introduction, by Richard Ellis Snow's extant Case Books were published as Supplement 14 by the journal, Medical History..
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  • Sidney P. W. Chave, "John Snow: The Broad Street Pump and After." The Medical Officer 99 (13 June 1958): 347-49.
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  • Peter E. Brown, "John Snow -- The Autumn Loiterer." Bulletin of the History of Medicine 35 (1961): 519-28.
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  • Peter E. Brown, "John Snow." Anesthesia and Analgesia 43 (Nov.-Dec. 1964): 646-54.
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  • Alan M. Leaman, "John Snow MD -- his early days." Anaesthesia 39 (August 1984): 803-805.
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  • Benjamin Ward Richardson, "John Snow, M.D. A representative of medical science and art of the Victorian era." The Asclepiad 4 (1887): 274-300.
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  • Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson, "John Snow, M.D., a representative of medical science and art of the Victorian era." Disciples of Æsculapius, with a life of the author by his daughter, [Mary Stella] Mrs. George Martin, 227-244. London: Hutchinson, 1900 .
  • A. Bradford Hill, "Snow--an appreciation." Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 48 (1955): 1008-12.
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  • David Zuck, "John Snow -- Reductionist?" (February 2011). Revision of a paper presented on 17 September 2005 at the 6th International Symposium on the History of Anaesthesia, Queen's College, Cambridge, UK.
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  • Frost, Wade Hampton, ed., Snow on Cholera . . . together with a biographical memoir by B. W. Richardson and an Introduction by Wade Hampton Frost. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936. Reprinted by Hafner, 1965. Contains reprints of MCC2, CMC, and Snow's 1856 response to Simon's report on cholera in South London.
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  • Stephanie J. Snow, John Snow 1813-1858: the emergence of the medical profession. Ph.D. Thesis, Keele University, 1995.
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  • Stephanie J. Snow, "John Snow MD (1813-1858). Part I: A Yorkshire childhood and family life." Journal of Medical Biography 8 (2000): 27-31.
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  • Stephanie J. Snow, "John Snow MD (1813-1858). Part II: Becoming a doctor--his medical training and early years of practice." Journal of Medical Biography 8 (2000): 71-77.
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John Snow's Contemporaries

  • Spence Galbraith, "Dr Joshua Parsons (1814-1892) of Beckington, Somerset General Practitioner." Somerset Archaeology and Natural History 140 (1997): 106-19.
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  • Spence Galbraith, "Dr. John Watson (1790/91-1847) of Burnopfield and his assistant Dr. John Snow." Durham County Local History Society Bulletin 57 (May 1998): 32-50.
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  • W. R. Winterton, "The Soho cholera epidemic 1854." History of Medicine 8 (March/April 1980): 11-20.
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  • Stephanie J. Snow, "Sutherland, Snow, and water: the transmission of cholera in the nineteenth century." International Journal of Epidemiology 31 (October 2002): 908-11.
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  • Stephen Halliday, ""Dr. John Sutherland, Vibrio cholerae and 'predisposing causes." International Journal of Epidemiology 31 (October 2002): 912-14.
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  • Christopher Hamlin, "John Sutherland's Epidemiology of Constitutions." International Journal of Epidemiology 31 (October 2002): 915-19.
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  • George Davey Smith, "Behind the Broad Street pump: epidemiology and prevention of cholera in mid-19th century Britain." International Journal of Epidemiology 31 (October 2002): 920-32.
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  • David Zuck, "Julius Jeffreys--pioneer of humidification." An edited, updated, and reformatted version of a paper published in the History of Anaesthesia Society, Proceedings 8b (June 1990): 70-80.
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  • David Zuck, "Julius Jeffreys and the physiology of lung volumes." Updated and corrected version of the paper that appeared in History of Anaesthesia Society, Proceedings 10 (October 1991): 55-61.
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  • David Zuck, "Charles Empson." An expanded version of a talk delivered at a joint meeting of the History of Anaesthesia Society and the Section of Anaesthetics of the Royal Society of Medicine on 6 March 1993; and subsequently published in the History of Anaesthesia Society, Proceedings 12 (1993): 56-62.
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  • David Zuck, "Thomas Graham," History of Anaesthesia Society, Proceedings 17 (1995): 36-42.
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  • Anna Macdonald and David Zuck, "The Robinson-Hooper connection." Anaesthesia 61 (2006): 553-56..
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  • Richard H. Ellis, "James Robinson, England's true pioneer of anaesthesia." The History of Anesthesia. Third International Symposium, Proceedings (March 1992): 153-64.
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  • David Zuck, "William Hooper (1818-1878) and the early weeks of anaesthesia in England." History of Anaesthesia Society, Proceedings 34 (July 2004): 48-60.
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  • Tom Koch, John Eyler, Beverly P. Bergman, and Nigel Paneth, Four commentaries on E. A. Parkes' review of MCC2. International Journal of Epidemiology 42 (December 2013): 1553-66.
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  • Richard Streeter, "Eliza Reid (1841–54)"—a genealogical and historical narrative of one of the earliest victims of the St. James, Westminster cholera outbreak (September 2019).
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  • Rev. Henry Whitehead, "The Broad Street Pump: An episode in the cholera epidemic of 1854" Macmillan's Magazine (December 1865): 113–22.
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  • Rev. Henry Whitehead, "The influence of impure water on the spread of cholera" MacMillan's Magazine (July 1866): 182–90.
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  • Rev. Henry Whitehead, "Remarks on the outbreak of cholera in Broad Street, Golden Square, London, 1854." Transactions of the Epidemiological Society of London. Vol. 3 (Pt 1). Read at the 6 May 1867 meeting of the Society.
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  • Alastair Johnson, "John Snow and Thomas Giordani Wright: Medical Apprentices in Newcastle upon Tyne" (2009). The editor of Diary of a Doctor. Surgeon's Assistant in Newcastle upon Tyne, 1826-1829 compares Wright's account with what Snow, who left no diary, might have experienced in the same town.
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  • Jacob Steere-Williams, "The Perfect Food and the Filth Disease: Milk-borne Typhoid and Epidemiological Practice in Late Victorian Britain." An article published in the Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences (2010). The author situates his argument within the context of dimensions in British epidemiology traceable to the methods of Snow and William Budd.
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  • S.P.W. Chave, "Henry Whitehead and Cholera in Broad Street." Medical History 2 (April 1958): 92-108.
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  • David Zuck, "The Westminster Medical Society." An expanded version of a paper appearing in Proceedings, History of Anaesthesia Society (2010). Figures appear in the Study Detail.
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  • John M. Eyler, "The changing assessments of John Snow's and William Farr's cholera studies." Sozial-und Präventiv Medicin 46 (July 2001): 225-232.
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  • Shirley Roberts, "John Snow (1813-1858) and Benjamin Ward Richardson (1828-1896): a notable friendship." Journal of Medical Biography 7 (1999): 42-49.
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  • Paul W. Ewald, "On Darwin, Snow, and Deadly Diseases." Natural History (June 1994): 42-45.
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  • Edwin Lankester, Cholera: What is it? And how to prevent it. (London: Routledge & Sons, 1866).
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  • Spence Galbraith, "Joseph Warburton (1786-1846) of Pateley Bridge and his assistant Dr John Snow." Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 71 (1999): 225-36.
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  • Spence Galbraith, "William Hardcastle (1794-1860) of Newcastle upon Tyne, and his pupil John Snow." Archæologia Æliana 27 (1999): 155-70.
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Other Complementary Topics

  • David Zuck, "Dr. Nooth and his apparatus. The role of carbon dioxide in medicine in the late eighteenth century." British Journal of Anaesthesia 50 (1978): 393-405.
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  • David Zuck, "The physics of heat and vaporization: its history and application to the design of anaesthetic vaporizers." CPD Anaesthesia 1 (1999): 88-93.
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  • David Zuck, "Cyanosis in the early history of anaesthesia," History of Anaesthesia Society, Proceedings 16 (1994): 25-33. .
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  • Peter Vinten-Johansen, "Cholera in St. James: an historian's handiwork," online experiments in narrative and historiography.
  • Beth Linker, "Resuscitating the 'Great Doctor': The career of biography in medical history," in Thomas Söderqvist, ed., The History and Poetics of Scientific Biography (Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2007):221-39.
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  • Dave Boylan, "Finding Baby Lewis." A genealogist's search for the full name of the probable index case in the 1854 Golden Square cholera outbreak.
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  • Peter Vinten-Johansen, "Quick Reference for Apothecary and Chemical Weights and Measures" (2009).
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