Ghost Map Essay

Reflection Paper on Ghost Map John Snow is recognized as one of the founding fathers of modern epidemiology. In Ghost Map, it gives the details of John Snow’s efforts to discover that cholera was a water-borne illness. What John Snow did differently was he mapped the cases, and the map essentially represented each death as a bar. On the Broad Street pump, which was free, public source of drinking water for a long time, it located a well beneath Golden Square, to some of London’s poorest and crowded area. In August 1854, many residents of Golden Square suddenly became ill and even died. Those sick people began to have upset stomach, diarrhea, gut cramps, vomiting and racking thirst. People had no idea what was going on, but it was fast to spread. In a 24-hour period, 70 death occurred and most within 5 square blocks. At the meantime, hundreds more people were in danger. In fact, this affliction had taken place in Britain since earlier outbreaks from 1830s to 1840s (Quammen). Over thunders of citizens was killed in the past decades. However, from what they know …show more content…
First of all, data visualization is powerful that could change a lot. Before Snow discover that cholera was a water-borne illness, people thought the bad smell was the killer of the death. Then Snow did the research and used ghost map as a strong evidence to support his idea. Imaging if without those data collected by Snow, people would still be in a wrong direction in researching about the unidentified disease and more London citizens would suffer for a longer time. Nowadays, with the development of technology, doctors can use internet and social media to mark the outbreaks of diseases to keep watch on the spread. Statistical techniques have changed over recognition since Snow’s day. Computers can help doing complex regression analyses, which researchers can easily account for factors that might confound relationships (Gage). This made things much