Chris Leuchars

No Court for King Cholera Chris Leuchars

In late 1854, a doctor was called to a house in Hampstead, West London. He found the patient - an elderly lady - scrunched up into a ball, a rictus of agony contorting her features. Most remarkably, all the moisture in her body seemed somehow to have been sucked out, leaving her dried up like a shrivelled husk... Of all the diseases that afflicted people in the nineteenth century, the pandemics of cholera were undoubtedly the most terrifying. Yet much of their horror could have been avoided for, at a comparatively early stage, their true nature and course had been uncovered. In one of the most extraordinary detective stories in the history of scientific discovery, an English doctor, using a mixture of observation, logic and statistical evidence, had patiently tracked down the disease, and unmasked it for what it was. Yet he faced formidable opposition, for this was a time before the discovery of germs, when ideas about the causes of disease did not allow for such a breakthrough. Political and social reformers were determined to use their, incorrect, understanding of cholera to push for improvements that would change the role of government in the UK and improve the lives of its citizens. John Snow was cast in the unfortunate role of having to challenge their efforts in order to bring to public attention how the disease could be effectively prevented. This book, written for the general reader, sets the work of Snow against the backdrop of the political and social events of the time. It reveals how it was, ultimately, the combination of the political campaigns waged by Edwin Chadwick and John Simon, and the medical breakthrough by Snow, that enabled the UK to be one of the first countries to ban the spectre of cholera from its shores.