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

  • Benjamin W. Richardson, "The Life of John Snow, M.D." (1858). Richardson placed this biographical essay at the front of On Chloroform and Other Anaesthetics.
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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 .
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  • Commonwealth Club Publication Committee, 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 two of Snow's papers.
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  • A. Bradford Hill, "Snow--an appreciation." Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 48 (1955): 1008-12.
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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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  • 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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  • Richard H. Ellis, "Introduction." In The Case Books of Dr. John Snow, ix-xliii (Medical History, Supplement No. 14). London: Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 1994.
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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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  • Howard Brody, "Cholera in 1849 and the Biopsychosocial Model: Historical Analysis or Anachronism? (2003)".
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  • 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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  • Peter Vinten-Johansen, 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.

    To view the figures from the presentation in the form of PowerPoint slides, click here.
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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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  • 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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  • 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.
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John Snow's Contemporaries

  • S.P.W. Chave, "Henry Whitehead and Cholera in Broad Street." Medical History 2 (April 1958): 92-108.
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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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  • Paul W. Ewald, "On Darwin, Snow, and Deadly Diseases." Natural History (June 1994): 42-45..
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  • 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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  • 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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  • 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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  • 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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  • 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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  • 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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  • Stephen Halliday, ""Dr. John Sutherland, Vibrio cholerae and 'predisposing causes." International Journal of Epidemiology 31 (October 2002): 912-14.
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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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  • 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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Other Complementary Topics

  • 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 .
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