The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World | 
 enlarge | Author: Steven Johnson
Publisher: Riverhead Trade
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
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Rating:  103 reviews
Sales Rank: 6573
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1 Reprint
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.4 x 0.8
ISBN: 1594482691
Dewey Decimal Number: 941
EAN: 9781594482694
ASIN: 1594482691
Publication Date: October 2, 2007
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Product Description
A National Bestseller, a New York Times Notable Book, and an Entertainment Weekly Best Book of the Year It's the summer of 1854, and London is just emerging as one of the first modern cities in the world. But lacking the infrastructure-garbage removal, clean water, sewers-necessary to support its rapidly expanding population, the city has become the perfect breeding ground for a terrifying disease no one knows how to cure. As the cholera outbreak takes hold, a physician and a local curate are spurred to action-and ultimately solve the most pressing medical riddle of their time. In a triumph of multidisciplinary thinking, Johnson illuminates the intertwined histories of the spread of disease, the rise of cities, and the nature of scientific inquiry, offering both a riveting history and a powerful explanation of how it has shaped the world we live in.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 98 more reviews...
 Dr John Snow and the transmission of cholera November 30, 2008
Many years ago, I read the monograph of Dr John Snow ("On the mode of communication of cholera") originally published in 1854 after the famous Broad Street outbreak of cholera which is described in the book of Steven Johnson, "The ghost map".
But at that time, I was unable to fully understand the historical background in which Dr Snow lived and the details of how he made his fundamental discovery of the transmission of cholera by water. I did'nt even know Henry Whitehead and how important he was in that history.
The book "The ghost map" of Steven Johnson, is really amazing because it takes us deep into the "Victorian World" of Dr Snow, making his achievement even greater.
The medical paradigm of contagious diseases at Dr Snow's time was the miasma theory which said that those diseases were transmitted by air.
But based on his work as doctor and anesthesiologist (by the way, he is the father of anesthesiology) he doubted the miasma theory for two evidences he was fully aware :
1. the symptoms of cholera are all related to the gastrointestinal tract, the lungs are not affected at all (and they used to performed autopsies); so, how could a disease be transmitted by air if the lung are spared ? the transmission should be in the food or water not in the air;
2. if the transmission was by air contaminated with organic compounds as postulated by the miasma theory, all sorts of cleaning workers of London should be more affected by cholera than other people, which was not the case; and according to Dr Snow's own observations of the effects of ether and chloroform on patients during his numerous anesthesias, he knew that the more concentrated a gas, the more intense would be its effects (the so-called dose-effect relationship).
So, Dr Snow postulated that the transmission could be by water and he moved on to test that hipothesis. Before the Broad Street outbreak of cholera he had tested it in a previous epidemic of cholera in London (in 1848-1849) by comparing the statistics of death with the supply of clean or poluted water from the Thames river. And this statistical correlation proved correct.
So, when the Broad Street outbreak started, Dr Snow was aware that the likely source of contamination was the water of the pump. But it would be very difficult to prove it and persuade people.
Scientific research at its best November 15, 2008
This is wonderful account of scientific research on 19th century conducted not with high tech instruments but with an open and inquisitive mind and ground work. It eventually traces the cause of cholera to water when all the medics were sure at that time that diseases like this were transmitted by air in the form of foul smells. What is really amazing is that the works of Dr. Snow and Reverend Whitehead points to water as the source but they did not have any means to identify or propose what was wrong in the water. The cholera bacteria was identified several decades later. But still by careful observations, statistics, lots of interviews and applied logic they identified the contaminated water form a particular well was the cause.
I recommend this book to whoever is interested in following step by a step a very scientific reasoning.
Definitely Worth The Read November 9, 2008
The book kept me glued for 180 pages straight. Very compelling read for the genre. There are some negatives though. The book often dwells far too long on topics not all that relevant or necessary to the story. You get the filling that the author added a lot of filler to make the book longer. This feeling is stressed by the fact that the author repeats himself A LOT. He will literally say the same thing reworded three times in a row and repeat it once more in the next paragraph. Still, I loved the book and I felt an amazing sense of respect and pride while reading through plight of the two main protagonists. The writing isn't top shelf material but it works.
Like fiction October 2, 2008
Steven Johnson gets draw a clasical Snow's Story like a fiction but anchored to the reality throught tree "dramatic lines":
1. The comming of a epidemiology like a new science.
2. The borning of geographic inference. How we can infer what happen in the micro world trough the macro world.
3. A case of honestity betwen ancient believes performer and a science man.
Those tree treadsare weaved by the story with presence of tautness moments and characters take the good side or de bad side in diferent moments.
The story is simple but well workred. A terrific dreadful sillnes apears in London, a bunch of corpses flood the streets. Nothing knows that to do. Church performer says that the gulty is the miasma. Miasma is a very strange conccept that does not means although nothing, buy can be seen like a phantom that travels by air taking amay litle pieces of sickness. The miasma can be produced by a god desicion. Who say that is Henry Whithead whose name would look have been taked from a fiction.
An anestesiologist apears in scene. He beginings to arrange the geografic information ponting each one of the dies, one point in the died person home. This hero is John Snow whose name looks like from fiction too.
Both persons debate about. But the stronger is the religious man. Trhough the worked maps, Snow get convince to Whitehead. Whitehead convince easely to goverment. And goverment close the water bombs getting in this way the victory over siknes the other character named cholera.
Is a good book but the map that present is just a part of the complet work. This book is good for teacheing, for enterteinement and for general culture too.
 Good book, but Kindle edition falls short September 30, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This was the first book I purchased for my Kindle, based on a friend's recommendation (who had read the print version). I found it a very enjoyable read, and it will be especially appealing to those interested in epidemiology, statistical graphics, and medical history.
However, if you care at all about annotations and such, I recommend you get it in print, not as a Kindle e-book. The book has very extensive notes at the end. I have to believe that these notes are numbered, and that there are superscripts in the main text of the printed version that reference these notes. However, in the Kindle edition, there are no links to these notes (even though such linking is possible), and there is no way to associate a given end note with a location in the text. I doubt that I would have interrupted my reading to follow many such notes, but I certainly would have done so a FEW times on topics of particular interest to me, and the inability to do so is a big loss.
The Kindle edition also includes the complete index, minus page numbers, and again with no links. This is not as big a problem, as one can use the search feature to find those locations.
What I wonder now is if this lack of linkage to end notes is the norm for Kindle books, or whether The Ghost Map is unusual in that respect. I suppose I will be pretty leery of reading nonfiction in this format in the future. This e-book cost me less than the printed form -- but I also received significantly less.
Another general note on the book is that it is disappointing that it does not display the second version of Snow's map (with voronoi boundaries) that is discussed in the conclusions. It would seem that this would be the "title map" so it is a curious omission.
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