Abstract
The great advances in medical science came with the use of the microscope and the discovery of bacteria and other organisms of disease by pioneers such as Pasteur and Koch. In earlier ages disease was associated with ‘Airs, Waters and Places’. Even so, a simple exercise in medical geography had enabled Dr John Snow in 1849 to attribute an outbreak of cholera in London to infection of the water of the communal pump in Broad Street. Jenner, too, evidently recognised the infectious nature of smallpox when he immunised his patients with cowpox vaccine. However, both Snow and Jenner earned the ridicule of their colleagues of the medical profession. Snow overcame the ridicule and proved his point by removing the pump handle. Jenner was eventually justified by success.
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© 1978 R.N. T-W-Fiennes
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T-W-Fiennes, R.N. (1978). Geographical Medicine. In: The Environment of Man. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-9870-1_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-9870-1_4
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