The John Snow Memorial

[image of John Snow]
Dr. John Snow, aged 43

Dr John Snow (1813-1858) was a Victorian physician, a pioneer in the fields of anaesthesia and epidemiology, famed for his tracing of the source of a cholera outbreak in London’s Soho and confirming that it is a waterborne disease.

John Snow was born on this York street on 15 March 1813 and was baptised in All Saints’ Church across the road. His father was a labourer in a local coal-yard.

Aged just 14, John was apprenticed to William Hardcastle, a Newcastle-upon-Tyne surgeon apothecary who also grew up in this area of York. In 1836, aged 23, he moved to London to complete his medical training.

John became interested in the new anaesthetic agents Ether and Chloroform, devising pamps to ensure accurate dosing and safer surgery. He administered Chloroform to Queen Victoria during the births of Prince Leopold in 1853 and Princess Beatrice in 1857.

Following his early experience of cholera in Newcastle and the 1849 London epidemic, he published ’On the mode of Communication of Cholera’, suggesting that cholera was water-borne and caused by contamination of water by sewage. He advocated washing hands before handling food.

During the 1854 Soho epidemic, he plotted the cases on a street map, and proved the link to the Broad Street pump. Despite opposition,, the council removed the handle and the epidemic rapidly declined.

Considered the father of epidemiology, the study of the origins and spread of diseases, John Snow died of a stroke on 16 June 1858 and is buried in the Brompton cemetery, London.

[Image]
An excerpt from the lithograph map published by John Snow in 1854 showing cholera cases in relation to the pump in Broad Street, Soho, London

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In the memorial erected in honor of John Snow in the city of York where he was born, a water pump is shown, without the handle used to operate it which is beside it on the ground, indicating the way that a cholera epidemic was stopped by removing the pump and thus stopping the flow of polluted water.

The memorial , established in 2017, was photographed by the same photographer on the same day Click for a larger image

The round sign on the monument is also displayed on the website Click for sign's details

Another commemorative plaque is found near the place where he was born Click for sign's details