Welcome

John Snow's contributions during the early years of inhalation anesthesia, and his investigations during two mid–century cholera epidemics in Victorian London, are landmarks in anesthesiology, epidemiology, medical cartography, and public health.

This Web site contains an archive of searchable texts of Snow's published writings—most appearing in medical journals—and recorded presentations and comments at medical society meetings between 1838 and his death in 1858. The archive will also include selections from writings by some of Snow's contemporaries, whether supporters, skeptics, or outright antagonists.

This site is also an online companion to Cholera, Chloroform, and the Science of Medicine: A Life of John Snow (Oxford University Press, 2003), by Peter Vinten–Johansen, Howard Brody, Nigel Paneth, Stephen Rachman, and Michael Rip, with assistance from David Zuck. The bibliography is available in searchable text, and all figures are reproduced. We also provide research schemas that were prepared for analytical purposes during the writing process. We intend to post illustrations and maps that are not included in the book.

A third portion of the site features interpretive studies of John Snow, of his contemporaries, and of the issues they addressed; a comprehensive bibliography; and a list of additional Web sites on these topics.