John Snow
English epidemiologist and physician (1813-1858) · United Kingdom · Doctors · Died at 45
John Snow is read about 626 times a day, in 41 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 15 October 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 390 days, one point a day.
Something wrong?He stopped a cholera epidemic by pulling the handle off a water pump - then proved disease could spread through contaminated water when most doctors still blamed "bad air."
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About this person
John Snow was born 15 March 1813 in England and trained as a physician at a time when germ theory didn't exist. He pioneered the use of anaesthesia in surgery and childbirth, but his sharpest work came during an 1854 cholera outbreak in London's Soho. While the medical establishment blamed miasma, Snow mapped the deaths and traced them to a single public pump on Broad Street. He had the handle removed, the outbreak subsided, and his method laid groundwork for modern epidemiology. His findings forced London to overhaul its water and waste systems - changes that rippled to other cities and lifted public health worldwide. He died 16 June 1858, his conclusion about waterborne disease still ahead of its time.
Doctors from the United Kingdom 6
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