The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World

The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was fantastic!  It read more like a novel than a medical history.  It was how these two men started out from opposite points and came to the same conclusion.  It is also interesting to read of a time period so different from ours.  I kept wanting to tell the people to wash their hands or instruments.

The book starts out slowly with more information on cholera and London than you think you want to know, but it is necessary to understand just how little they knew about the spread of the disease.  I have to think back to how we felt when AIDS burst on the scene.  No one knew how it passed from person to person.  A friend of mine was one of the earliest researchers of the disease and he wanted to study AIDS because so many of the early researchers were contracting it.  He went on to be one of the foremost experts on the disease and, in a way, became very much like Dr. Snow.

Unlike most historical mysteries, this book wraps everything up very much like Miss Marple.  The doctor is finally able to reach back to patient "0" and everything clicks into place.  It is unbelievable how strong Dr. Snow was as he went against the "misama" theory of infection.  Even when the smoking gun is found there were still people in the medical field who would not change their minds.


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