The Stressful Diseases In Steven Johnson's The Ghost Map

If you were to survey a group of individuals on the street about which modern marvel seems to be the most revolutionary, answers back would vary. Some would reply the computer, perhaps the fact that humans can travel hundreds of miles within a single day thanks to air travel. Nevertheless the range in replies, it would not be surprising to not hear the very thing that has spared the life of each individual: the modern sanitation movement. Largely left in the past, the heros in the battle against disease are not appreciated, despite every individual benefitting from their research daily. Author Steven Johnson sheds light on the horrors of life before the development of basic sanitation in The Ghost Map. Traveling back all the way to Victorian London, where children were lucky to live past five years old, disease, notably cholera, ruled all parts of life. When entire neighborhoods were wiped out within a matter of days, scientists like Doctor John Snow rose to the challenge in finding its cause. Snow's success in identifying cholera's transmission was the beginnings of the modern sanitation movement, allowing for cities to transform into the metropolises of today. …show more content…
Outbreaks such as the one in Victorian London in 1854 was just a blip in the disease’s vicious history, partially due to the long standing misunderstanding of what exactly it is and its symptoms.
“The causative agent of cholera, one of the most serious gastrointestinal diseases, is Vibrio cholerae, a slightly curved, gram-negative rod with a single polar flagellum. Cholera bacilli grow in the small intestine and produce an exotoxin, cholera toxin, that causes host cells to secrete water and electrolytes, especially potassium” (Tortora