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John Snow

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  • John Snow 

  • Born March 15th, 1813 in York England

  • Became a vegetarian at age 17

  • Snow was also a member of the temperance movement, joining in 1830.

  • At age 14 obtained a medical scholarship with William Hardcastle, and studied to become a surgeon/apothecary apprentice.

  • By 1837, Snow was working at the Westminster Hospital, and was a founding member of the epidemiological Society of London, this Society was formed in 1850, in response to the Cholera epidemic that broke out in 1849.

  • John Snow was also heavily fascinated with anesthesia and in 1847 published On the Inhalation of the Vapor of Ether, which served as a medical guide for its use.

    • Considered the father of epidemiology

    • Mapped and tracked down the virus to the source

    • Snow died in 1858 after suffering from a stroke 6 days prior. He died June 16th, 1858.

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Snow was also a pioneer in the field of anesthetics. By testing the effects of controlled doses of ether and chloroform on animals and on humans, he made those drugs safer and more effective, and contributed to the overall development of these medicines and their use in the medical field. In April 1853, he was responsible for giving chloroform to Queen Victoria at the birth of her son Leopold, and performed the same task in April 1857 when her daughter Beatrice was born.

 

 Snow's scientific insight was due the theory that cholera is spread by means of a contaminated water-supply, which he believed to be the Broad Street pump, and his essay upon the mode of communication of cholera, which was first published in 1849. In 1855 a second edition was published, with a much more elaborate investigation of the effect of the water-supply on certain districts of South London in the epidemic of 1854. 

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