The Real Story of John Snow 

I pass by his grave quite often, out in Brompton Cemetery in west London. We salute your unappreciated efforts, John Snow.

I'm always amazed when I get reminded that not drinking sewage wasn't common sense some time ago...

For anyone who wants to learn more, Extra History did a series on John Snow's fight against Cholera, and how it gave way to not only modern epidemiology, but the modern sanitary movement.

As a human biologist and researcher, I cannot emphasise enough how important the development of sanitation in major cities was. All of us know that numerous people died due to the lack of sewage systems (and there have been roughly 7 major cholera worldwide outbreaks in the last 200 years). Although you might think that cholera infections are not as prevalent anymore it is estimated that each year there are still 1.3 million to 4.0 million cases of cholera, and 21 000 to 143 000 deaths worldwide (would really love to make a video about that)! I really hope that we could raise more awareness for this issue. Feel free to ask me anything about this topic or stem cells (since I am conducting research in this field)!

Britain’s General Board of Health: YOU KNOW NOTHING JOHN SNOW!

this is the only John Snow I've ever heard of.

Snow is the father of my field of GIS too! He is widely consider the first person to make a geographic information system (GIS) to map the outbreaks for informed conclusions based on geographic data

"But mostly, he's remembered for the way he fought cholera." with his FISTS

One of my favorite historical figures. I wrote a whole musical about him. That's not a joke, I actually spent 3 months writing a musical about him.

I read a fascinating book on the subject, 'The Ghost Map', by Steven Johnson. I remember that workers at a nearby brewery didn't catch cholera as often, as they drank beer - which, as I recall, the fermentation process killed the bacteria. There was also a demographer who aided greatly in Snow's theory.

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ John Snow! His embrace of germ theory in the era of miasma theory is truly mindblowing. Truly a person with a major contribution to helping public health.

SciShow: John Snow Issac Arthur: Winter on Venus Winter is indeed coming.

John Snow is one of my favorite figures in medical history. Also, I never watched GoT so I have the opposite problem. When I hear people talking about the character, I think they're talking about the doctor.

At 2:30 if you look in the background of the photo of the pump, you can see the pub named in his honour. The street was renamed Broadwick street and is in Soho, London.

I think that they used the John Snow water pump story in the show The Frankenstein Chronicles. Part of the show revolves around a single community getting extremely sick, and by talking to multiple people from the community, Sean Bean's character tracks it all down to a single water pump. Of course, to fit this into the show, it wasn't human waste in the water that caused the problem, but human corpses. 🤷🏻‍♀️

When they call it 'The Real Story of John Snow' instead of 'The Real Story of Your Poop' to trick people into watching 👀

We learned about John Snow at the univerity(i studied Geodesy/Land survey) :) The map he made, and the way he used it for problem solving was an important precursor of modern day GIS (Geographic Information System).

John Snow did not work alone in his quest. William Farr and Reverend Henry Whitehead also played instrumental roles. Snow's role in the story is better described as the person who best synthesized the health data. (Info paraphrased from the book "The Ghost Map") William Farr had been collecting (rather impressively detailed) health data for a while by the time of Snow's investigation, but since he was one of the miasmatists, his data focused on a lot of things related to the miasma theory that unintentionally misled health officials to look in the wrong places (e.g. looking for ventilation near cesspools instead of nearby water supplies). Reverend Henry Whitehead set out to discredit Snow, but actually ended up disproving his initial suspicion on the water-borne theory. His advantage was that he actually knew many of the victims in the Broad street outbreak and can therefore collect very detailed data, and his findings simply did not jibe with the prevailing miasma theory. His detailed knowledge of the Broad street/ Golden Square neighborhood made him a valuable ally to Snow. Snow synthesized his own, Farr's, and Whitehead's data and recognized where cholera should've been but wasn't, and where cholera shouldn't have been but was. By fitting his theory to data, instead of his data to theory, he was able to look beyond the erroneous miasma theory.

Extra Credit did a more in depth mini-series about this. If anybody wants to know more.

There's this pub in London's Soho called the John Snow, and now I finally know why!

Nice to see the new vid before I go to sleep, thanks guys!

The precursor of Spatial Analysis / Geographic Information Systems

So for anyone who wants more information on John Snow please, please read Ghost Map by Steven Johnson. It is the best nonfiction book I've ever read! I read it 9 years ago and it's still the ideal I judge other books by. Also the way he tested anaesthesia on himself...pure comedic gold!

Poor guy didn't get any recognition for his efforts and work while he was still alive . General people were really close minded towards science and stuff back then , it's really amazing how far we have come in the last 200 years in the field of healthcare , diseases and medicine .

Snow speaking to the queen be like: "you are my queen."

"Today I Found out" just had a whole video about how people only rarely dumped human waste in the city streets. A big reason for this, is because one's neighbors wouldn't wan't to smell the manure everyday, and they're likely to beat up the offending individual.

I had to play Jon snow at some industrial revolution dinner party in secondary school history class. Then I watched game of thrones and I was so confused.

I had. To write a fact file about this guy for my college course. He will always now be the John snow I think of hahahha

Nice video and history! Очень познавательно,спасибо.

Ygritte: You know nothing Jo(h)n Snow. John Snow: Well, I do know that drinking one's own filth is a great way to get cholera. So, there's that you wilding minx.

There are some small historical misconceptions here but all of the science is on point.

It's always weird when Extra Credits and SciSchow/Crash Course talk about a subject the other did.

As an epidemiologist thank you for shining the light on one of our own!

I worked for many years in Broad Street and frequently went for an after work drink at the "John Snow" pub. Worth a visit if you're in London, and was named to commemorate his chaining of The Pump.

Extra history gang rise up! ✊

I'm getting my MPH in infectious disease epidemiology, and for those outside the field- John Snow is a huge deal. This story has been worked into every class I've taken. He's like the Einstein of epidemiology, probably even more significant than that.

Kudo's to bringing this to light to more people. Funny enough i already knew of this guy thanks to extra credits history.

John Snow (in my opinion) is the most influential doctor of the modern age

excellent

If anybody wants further information on this subject, Extra Credits has a wonderful series on this subject in their "Extra History" videos.

Stories like this give me hope. Give me hope that persistence of truth will make a difference. I know that it does it just great to hear the stories.

Broad Street Pump on Extra History, anyone?

And this John Snow, ladies and gentlemen was the true savior

I had the pleasure and excitement of going to the site of the pump named by John Snow. The whole idea of pattern matching was my area of AI. To realize that John Snow understood the patterns was stunning.

Extra Credits really went into depth into this subject called the Broad Street Pump its really great

There is a great book on John Snow's work on Cholera called "The Ghost Map".

His real name is AegHon Targaryen. 😂

I remember when I learned about him in my history of medicine class. This video’s title was exactly what I thought of

Didn't his peers remove access to the well just to mock him? And then weren't even convinced by the dropping rates? Or is that just an added story?

snow got in trouble with the editor of the lancet for frequently writing in to correct contributors.

I actually knew something you guys made a video on for once. I have big brain me smart.

There's an excellent book on this topic by Steven Johnson - "The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World"

Wait, didn't you guys already do a video on John Snow? I know Extra Credits did but I'm sure Michael covered this already.

We take so much for granted. I for one am incredibly grateful for pioneers like John Snow who literally made the world fit to live in. If the western world had a functioning education system John Snow and many others would (and should) be household words while screwed-up celebrities would only rate a passing mention.

Ah finally a scientist or a hero's name I can easily remember!

The great Doctor !!!

Why did John Snow go to the Apple Store? For the Watch.

also john snow used to come down from fort drum, i guess that's one of the castles on the wall, to fix my computer back when i had a laptop with a warranty

The father of Geographic Information Systems.

No mention of Voronoi diagrams in his analysis?

0:08 TIL about en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Skirth via en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Snow_(journalist)

Lord snow was the hero that 19th century London needed but not the hero they deserved

What a great story . How did John Snow feel about his aunt ?

I think he should have his own day dedicated to him. We could call it...um...hmm...Snow Day! I will never look at Snow Day the same again.

I’ve never heard of any John Snow but I still enjoy the content as always.

A true hero.

opened this from my notification bar like "they didn't spell jon correct.... why are they talking about a GoT character?" 😂 i knew nothing, i guess

On another note, Kit Harrington’s descendant was the man who invented the flushing toilet!

Have y’all not already done this video??

Now I want the real story of Al Snow and Head.

He did at the same time use GIS to solve his problem As the first ever

They called the pub on the corner beside the pump after him if you want to toast to a great man

I'm currently studying at Durham University in the UK, and we have a college named after John Snow. Every year someone dresses up as him for special events and they carry the handle from the water pump.

A smaller contribution of Snow's is that map of his is also studied in Data Visualization. Not quite epidemiology cool, but still interesting.

There was also John Snow, one of the greatest cricketing fast bowlers of all time.

The 'Our story mid-19th century London which was in a word gross. In two words SUPER GROSS!' sends me every single time. ☠

Badass

Here’s a question. Why do kitties love the springy door stops??

Check out The Ghost Map, by Steven Johnson.

I have often thought London should be called "Choleraville", or just "Diarrhea". Yay

Me:"Don't eat the yellow snow lol." Victorian:"Why?"

Same with Ignaz Semmelweis. He didn't live long enough to be widely recognised by the scientific community and he couldn't yet establish his finndings, but he saved probably hundreds of mothers from certain death by childbed fever. He died as a castaway broken man.

Epidemiological studies can show association but not causation. This is why modern nutrition research is so all over the place as far as what you should eat.

we got to watch this in science class and i literally yelled out “it’s hank green!” i got some weird looks

Sound :-)

At least he knew something

Go snow!

Someone turn this into a movie

Snow: Hey guys Sewage is causing cholera... let's like fix this right? Everyone: Nah. Too much work, not enough evidence. Snow: *dies* Everyone: Oh hey... sewage causes cholera.

He was treated very badly by medical community on this issue one of the major medical journals at the time said that his work on the cholera outbreak had no scientific basis!

What. The. HELL! I had just discovered this guy and was having a chuckle at his name *yesterday!* More like PsychicShow!

Its a law universally acknowledged any RU-vid video about John Snow must include at least one joke about him know nothing

Wow he talk to the family, very avant-garde for the times lol

There is also President Snow from the Hunger Games. But his first name is Coriolanus.

Feel like Extra Credits' Extra History series on John Snow belongs here: ru-vid.com/group/PLfkEG7-l23BEPVpk9utR0y7p_i0I6GMy5

Learned about this guy in a Klutz book as a kid and always thought he was a badass. Then Game of Thrones came out, I didn't watch it, and was... well, incredibly confused. For anyone who can't get enough john snow, extra history's series is great.

There are the videos of Extra Credits about this if you like cute drawings

The officials agreed to take the handle off the pump? The story's changed since last I heard it in one of these.

Not surprising, he also notably would only drink water that had been boiled. True story.

one day we will have a video on dire wolves, john snow or komodo dragons without having to make game of thrones references......