Mapping disease: John Snow and Cholera
To celebrate John Snow’s 200th birthday, a public lecture with author and journalist Sandra Hempel was held on 15 March. Guests also enjoyed a Broad Street birthday cake and sang happy birthday to Dr Snow!
On 16 March, an all-day scientific symposium uncovered the medical history around cholera and looked at historical aspects of Snow’s work.
- Watch videos from the John Snow events on our dedicated Vimeo channel
- Download a PDF of the John Snow conference brochure
- John Snow and cholera: how myth helped secure his place in history – by Sandra Hempel
Friday 15 March 2013 – Public lecture
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London, WC1E 7HT
Reception
| 18.00 |
| Welcome Baron Peter Piot, Director, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine |
| Cholera in London Sandra Hempel, Journalist and Historical Writer, Author of ‘Medical Detective’ and ‘The strange tale of the Broad Street pump: John Snow and the mystery of cholera’ |
| Thanks Professor Pat Buffler, President-elect, International Epidemiology Association |
| 19.00 |
Saturday 16 March – Scientific meeting
| 09.00 | Registration/Coffee |
| Chair: Virginia Berridge, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine | |
| 09.30 | John Snow’s concept of Cholera: the Revolution beyond Epidemiology Christopher Hamlin, Professor of History, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA; Visiting Professor, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine |
| 10.15 | The image of John Snow Jan Vandenbroucke, Professor of Epidemiology, University of Leiden; Academy Professor of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences |
| 11.00 | Coffee |
| Chair: Shah Ebrahim, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine | |
| 11.30 | ICDDR,B – a history of cholera research Alejandro Cravioto, Chief Scientific Officer, International Vaccine Institute, Seoul, South Korea; former Director, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B) |
| 12.15 | Cholera vaccination 1894: the first controlled medical trial George Davey Smith, Professor of Clinical Epidemiology; Director of the MRC Centre for Causal Analyses in Translational Epidemiology, University of Bristol |
| 13.00 | Lunch |
| Chair: Sandy Cairncross, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine | |
| 14.30 | William Budd on cholera Michael Dunnil, Emeritus Fellow, Merton College, Oxford |
| 15.15 | John Snow, hero of cholera, RIP Tom Koch, Adj. Professor of Medical Geography, University of British Columbia |
| 16.00 | Coffee |
| 16.30 | Waves of transmission Gordon Dougan, Head of the Microbial Pathogenesis group, Wellcome Trust Sangar Institute, Cambridge; Visiting Professor, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine |
| 17.15 | Thanks and close of meeting Professor Pat Buffler, President-elect, International Epidemiology Association |
These meetings are hosted by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the Wellcome Trust, in collaboration with the International Epidemiological Association, the John Snow Society and the Centre for History in Public Health.
Image: Printed cholera notice, 1866. Credit: LSHTM Library & Archives