Customer Reviews

The Strange Case of the Broad Street Pump: John Snow and the Mystery of Cholera

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I generally liked this book, which does a nice job of telling the story of the cholera epidemics in Britain in the 1800s and John Snow's role in solving the mystery of how cholera is transmitted. However, this book is not just about John Snow's work --- there are many tangents to examine other prominent historical figures of the time, some of which I found forced and distracting, and the afterward on global climate change seemed like a hasty afterthought. Still, if you are interested in the origins of modern epidemiology you will like this book.

Broad Street Pump is a good book about how the mystery of the Cholera outbreaks was solved by a determined doctor.


During the 19th Century, there were 3 great pandemics that killed large numbers of people in Asia & Europe. The primary killer was cholera, a disease for which there was no known cure.

One physician who sought a cure for cholera was John Snow who was a disciplined individual who suffered from the disdain of the British medical profession. Snow's research led him to the conclusion that cholera's spread was through contaminated drinking water.

In Snow's "grand experiment" he identified a contaminated pump and disabled it and by doing so began the defeat of the disease in London. Snow's work also furthered the development of germ theory and helped debunk the widely held theory of spontaneous generation of diseases.

This is a good book.

"The Strange Case of the Broad Street Pump" describes the waves of cholera that spread across the world from 1817 to 1866, what was done to treat it, and what was discovered about it. While many people and places were mentioned, we learned the most about John Snow since he made the greatest discovery about how cholera was spread and the main focus was on the cholera-related events in London, England. The book also described related topics like the medical and sanitary practices of the day, medical training, etc. Sometimes it felt like the author was wandering off topic, but these asides still gave an interesting look at the time period.

The author frequently quoted letters, journal articles, case notes, etc., from that time period They described what someone sick with cholera went through, the medical views on the spread and treatment of cholera, etc. There were also black-and-white illustrations: political cartoons and posters about cholera from that time period.

If talking about drinking water that contains feces and mentions of people throwing up grosses you out, then you might not enjoy the many vivid descriptions in this book. However, I found it an interesting, easy read from start to finish. The author clearly explained the (few) medical terms she used as well as any outdated phrasings in the quotes that might be confusing.

Cholera is another example of how the majority of scientists at that time were so sure of their own ideas about how sickness was transmitted that they couldn't see the truth even when John Snow clearly showed that they were wrong. Anyone who believes that "if most scientists say it then it must be true" should read books like this. :) Maybe they're right, maybe they aren't, but they aren't right just because they're in the majority.

In any case, I recommend this book to those who aren't easily grossed out who are interested in cholera and the advances in science that occurred while trying to fight it.

An unexpected PLUS.... social, political and medical background on the hysteria of the community, cover up by the gov't and ignorance of the medical system at that time.

Interesting, informative, with a lot of examples of problems that could relate to the present day. For example, the inability of the medical science board to look at evidence presented by John Snow. Basically, the only thing they could see was the miasma theory. Unfortunately, we have similar problems going on today where scientists cannot see beyond the current dogma.