This Just Read: The Ghost Map

I just finished Steven Johnson's The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World. It's the second time I read it and I got more out of it this time. Back in 2008-2009 I was a chaplaincy intern at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rechester, New York. I was reading a lot of medical writing and found John Barry's The Great Influenza, the account of the 1918 influenza pandemic. After that, I read The Ghost Map for the first time. On the surface it's a medical detective story. A cholera outbreak in 1854 London killed hundreds in a matter of days. Two men, working independently, began to investigate the causes of the outbreak.
The prevailing theory of disease at the time was that it was caused by bad air, or miasma. London was a swelling metropolis of two million, with all the horrible stench and filth that comes with that many people, their animals and industry.
Dr. John Snow lived near the outbreak and decided to look into it to test a pet theory--that cholera was spread through contaminated water. He began going door to door, seeking out those who succumbed and those who mysteriously were left untouched.
At the same time the local vicar, Henry Whitehead, was going door to door in the same neighborhood, offering pastoral care to the people he knew so well. At last, a story where the vicar is the hero!
These two men collected the pieces of this puzzle and eventually joined forces and put together a compelling picture of the spread of this particular outbreak. Dr. Snow compiled their results on several maps that correlated the disease with proximity to one source of water: the Broad Street pump. Rev. Whitehead, through his knowledge of the people, managed to track down Patient Zero--the case that started this particular outbreak. Together, they showed the world (though it would take decades before their arguments were universally accepted) that cholera was spread through contaminated water.
At it's heart, this is a story of how we see that which is invisible. The cholera bacteria had only just been observed in Italy, and were unknown in England. How can one see what cannot be seen? Snow and Whitehead mapped the visible and in so doing were able to show an image of the entity that is cholera.
That's the main thrust of the book, but the story of Snow, Whitehead, and the 1854 cholera outbreak are also used by Johnson to get it a larger story: the story of human urbanization. We are city dwellers, more and more. The 1854 outbreak was made possible by bringing so many people together into such a small space without adequate technology to handle their waste. It's a logistical problem. Technology has enabled us to solve many of these logistical problems, making the urban landscape the norm for human living.
Johnson argues that this is a good thing, as out population swells, it makes sense to gather where we have the lowest impact on the environment. The most efficient places on earth for that are cities. New York City, for example, is the most energy-efficient place on earth! But mass urbanization is not inevitable. Fears of pandemic disease, terrorist attack, nuclear war, make gathering into huge cities problematic.
Overall, a well-written take on two interesting stories, one in the past and one in our present and future.