Click here for the original audio. The cholera epidemic of 1854 quickly killed more than 600 people in a neighborhood of London. Officials incorrectly assumed it spread through smelly air until one ...

Doctors once had some weird ideas about the spread of disease. A century and a half ago, most physicians thought cholera was spread by "miasma.'' That is, they believed that foul air emanating from ...

Editor's note: This segment was rebroadcast on Dec. 6, 2024. Click here for that audio. The cholera epidemic of 1854 quickly killed more than 600 people in a neighborhood of London. Officials ...

A 19th century doctor was able to pinpoint which homes were affected by contaminated water, and link that to cholera deaths in the area. The following is an excerpt from Mapmatics: A Mathematician’s ...

Cholera was once one of the most dreaded diseases in crowded early industrial cities. It claimed thousands of lives, sweeping away whole families in one epidemic after another. Doctors were baffled by ...

Before there was Jon Snow, King of the North, there was a real-life hero of the same name. Back in 1854, a Dr. John Snow made a medical breakthrough that earned him the title "The Father of ...

One of the early success stories in the science of disease came in 1854, during a crippling cholera outbreak in London. Physician John Snow painstakingly recorded the locations of every cholera victim ...

If you enjoyed this article, I’d like to ask for your support. Scientific American has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in ...

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Officials incorrectly assumed it spread through smelly air, until one maverick doctor insisted that contaminated water was the culprit. How the experts got the cholera outbreak of 1854 so wrong The ...