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Title Cholera, chloroform, and the science of medicine : a life of John Snow / Peter Vinten-Johansen [and others]
Published Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2003

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Description 1 online resource (xiv, 437 pages) : illustrations
Contents Contents -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- CHAPTER 1 York and Newcastle, 1813�1833 -- CHAPTER 2 Senior Apprentice and Assistant, 1830�1836 -- CHAPTER 3 London Medical and Surgical Training, 1836�1838 -- CHAPTER 4 Forging a London Career, 1838�1846 -- CHAPTER 5 Ether -- CHAPTER 6 Chloroform -- CHAPTER 7 Cholera Theories: Controversy and Confusion -- CHAPTER 8 Snow�s Cholera Theory -- CHAPTER 9 Professional Success -- CHAPTER 10 Cholera and Metropolitan Water Supply -- CHAPTER 11 Broad Street -- CHAPTER 12 Snow and the Mapping of Cholera Epidemics
CHAPTER 13 Snow and the SanitariansCHAPTER 14 Further Developments in Anesthesia -- CHAPTER 15 Common Ground: Continuous Molecular Changes -- CHAPTER 16 Snow�s Multiple Legacies -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z
Summary The product of six years of collaborative research, this fine biography offers new interpretations of a pioneering figure in anaesthesiology, epidemiology, medical cartography, and public health. It modifies the conventional rags to riches portrait of John Snow by synthesising fresh information about his early life from archival research and recent studies. It explores the intellectual roots of his commitments to vegetarianism, temperance, and pure drinking water, first developed when he was a medical apprentice and assistant in the north of England. The authors argue that all of Snow's later contributions are traceable to the medical paradigm he imbibed as a medical student in London and put into practice early in his career as a clinician: that medicine as a science required the incorporation of recent developments in its collateral sciences, chiefly anatomy, chemistry, and physiology, in order to understand the causes of disease. Snow's theoretical breakthroughs in anaesthesia were extensions of his experimental research in respiratory physiology and the properties of inhaled gases.; Shortly thereafter, his understanding of gas laws led him to reject miasmatic explanations for the spread of cholera, and to develop an alternative theory in consonance with what was then known about chemistry and the physiology of digestion. Using all of Snow's writings, the authors follow him when working in his home laboratory, visiting patients throughout London, attending medical society meetings, and conducting studies during the cholera epidemics of 1849 and 1854. The result is a book that demythologises some overly heroic views of Snow by providing a fairer measure of his actual contributions. It will have an impact not only on the understanding of the man but also on the history of epidemiology and medical science
Bibliography "Bibliography": pages 404-420
Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes English
Print version record
Subject Snow, John, 1813-1858.
SUBJECT Snow, John, 1813-1858 fast
Subject Epidemiologists -- Great Britain -- Biography
Anesthesiologists -- Great Britain -- Biography
Physicians.
Medicine -- History.
Physicians
History of Medicine
History, 19th Century
physicians.
history of medicine.
MEDICAL -- Nursing -- Anesthesia.
MEDICAL -- Anesthesiology.
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY -- Medical.
Physicians
Medicine
Anesthesiologists
Epidemiologists
Epidemiologia.
Anestesiologia.
SUBJECT United Kingdom
Subject Great Britain
GrÃ-Bretanha.
Genre/Form collective biographies.
History
Biographies
Biographies.
Biographies.
Form Electronic book
Author Vinten-Johansen, Peter
LC no. 2002030347
ISBN 019513544X
9780195135442
1423784669
9781423784661
1280530952
9781280530951
9786610530953
6610530955
0199747881
9780199747887