Wuhan Cholera Case & A John Snow Legacy
On July 8th, a cholera case got reported by health authorities in the city of Wuhan, China. So what is cholera, and what does it have to do with one John Snow.
This cholera case was detected in a Wuhan University graduate student after the patient experienced fever, vomiting, and diarrhea. Luckily, it turned out that there was only one such case detected in the region, and no outbreak occurred, though three close contacts have already gotten put under quarantine. Cholera is an acute diarrheal infection caused by ingesting food or water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholera. But it wasn’t always that cholera was an easily treatable disease. Once upon a time, the disease killed many people, and no one even knew how it was transmitted! However, that all changed when John Snow came along.
John Snow was born on March 15th, 1813, in York, England, the first of nine children born to William and Frances Snow in their North Street home, with their area being the poorest in the city. But at a young age, Snow loved education and was sent to school by his mother. He later learned medicine as an apprentice in Newcastle. And then the disease he would fight for most of his career struck: Cholera had spread.
It was 1832 when young John Snow encountered cholera. Many people suspected that cholera spread through the contaminated air. However, Snow developed the hypothesis through the many times he investigated the victims that there was something else spreading cholera. Then the outbreak just passed, and life continued. Snow moved on to other work. But this disease would continue to haunt him when it returned in 1854 in London. At first, it was just a few cases. And then, in the blink of an eye, cases were popping up all over London. And so Snow returned to studying this disease and trying to eradicate it.
As with many medical studies, one needs to have patience and patients. Through much questioning of patients who got cholera and doctors who treated them, they all told him the pain started in the intestines. If cholera was air-spread, wouldn’t cholera patients report lung pain? With the help of governmental data on the deaths and their locations, Snow plotted the deaths one by one onto a map of London. And then, as clear as day, was the culprit of most deaths: The Broad Street Pump.
It wasn’t clear back then, but now scientists can be sure that cholera was a disease transmitted through contaminated food and especially water. In those days, the pump was like the local well, and the Broad Street Pump got its water from the nearest river: The River Thames. The only difference between the many pumps in London was that some got their water from upstream, while others downstream. It might not seem much of a difference. However, the sewers emptied between the two points where people got their drinking water. So one opening got the contaminated water while the pump upper-stream got clean water.
Since the Broad Street Pump got contaminated water, it would naturally mean more people who drank it got cholera. But a baby’s case outdated all in the outbreak still was a mystery. That was the final piece of the cholera puzzle John Snow had to solve. By this time, cholera had already receded, and a new committee got formed to investigate the cholera cases. After questioning the baby’s mother, it got finally solved: The mother had dumped the sick baby’s diapers in the cesspit at the back of the house. The pit was poorly built and leaked into the well of the Broad Street Pump, where everyone got their drinking water!
So cholera got eliminated at last, or at least mostly. It is also because of John Snow that we now have more organized sanitation and clean water efforts. A few cases indeed pop up here and there, like the one in Wuhan. But we can be glad that, thanks to the work and effort of John Snow, we can be safe when drinking water and not worry about sewage overflowing. Through John Snow’s legacy, we can tell that patience, even when every minute lost could mean the loss of life, is the building block of any achievement. So I hope you can remember what Snow did and have patience when it’s your time to save the world. That’s the end of this production from the New News Newsminute. Thank you for reading, and tune in next time for more.