Investigating Cholera in Broad Street

“With highly engaging prose, accessible primary sources, and thought-provoking prompts, Peter Vinten-Johansen has produced an invaluable resource for students who want to understand better not only the monumental shifts in scientific methods and thinking concerning epidemics and disease in the nineteenth century, but also what it means to ‘do’ history, as he invites readers to conduct their own detective work and textual interpretations. An ideal blend of choose-your-own-adventure approach to storytelling combined with serious scholarship and documentation, Investigating Cholera will make the history of epidemics—and the classroom—come alive.” — Beth Linker, University of Pennsylvania

“Broad Street in London exerts an almost mythical hold over public health. But what do we really know about it? Peter Vinten-Johansen expertly deconstructs the legend by using a wide range of original documents to reconstruct the trajectories of cholera from India to Great Britain in the mid-nineteenth century. An exemplary model of its kind, this book is an essential resource for teachers and students of history and public health who want to understand how the knowledge and practices of medicine, science, and politics were brought together in an attempt to solve a pressing problem that had dire consequences at local and global scales.” — Graham Mooney, Johns Hopkins University

“This freshly edited collection of documents relating to the cholera outbreaks in mid-nineteenth-century Britain will prove invaluable for students and instructors alike. The material has been gathered to dispel the anachronistic view that John Snow was either a lone and derided genius or ‘a prototypical germ-theorist.’ The story of cholera investigation that emerges here is a collaborative one.” — Alannah Tomkins, Keele University