How the experts got the cholera outbreak of 1854 so wrong

10:50

May 10, 2022

Scott Tong

The John Snow pub with a replica of the original water pump, at right, that in 1854 Dr John Snow tracked down as the drinking water source of a cholera outbreak that killed more than 500 people, the first time anyone had identified cholera as a water-borne disease, on Broadwick Street, in the Soho area of central London. Snow is considered one of the founders of modern epidemiology. (Matt Dunham/AP)

Editor's note: This segment was rebroadcast on Dec. 6, 2024. Click here for that audio.

The cholera epidemic of 1854 quickly killed more than 600 people in a neighborhood of London. Officials incorrectly assumed it spread through smelly air, until one maverick doctor insisted that contaminated water was the culprit.

Here & Now's Scott Tong looks at how the health establishment had false assumptions about cholera and the parallels with the COVID pandemic, where experts made a similar wrong assumption about how the virus spread.

Author Sandra Hemphill at a replica of the historic Broad Street Pump in London. (Scott Tong/Here & Now) — Author Sandra Hempel at a replica of the historic Broad Street Pump in London. (Scott Tong/Here & Now)

Retired epidemiologist Rosalind Stanwell-Smith of the John Snow Society, with a photo of Snow in the background. (Scott Tong/Here & Now)

This segment aired on May 10, 2022.

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