maps and waste

I have been wanting to mention one of the most famous maps ever drawn.  Edward Tufte's books on maps, charts, diagrams and such are famous trips through that world and I have mentioned his nomination for the most impressive map ever drawn in a previous blog. That one is about the French army's experience trying to conquer Russia.  

However, another map that has stuck in my head is Dr. John Snow's map of cholera cases in London.  Snow was a physician in London who observed the sickness was more frequent around a certain water pump.  He made a map of the distribution of cases of the sickness, linked immediately above.  Evidently he lived and worked in the area and had everyday contact with the problems of the disease.  This was in 1854, not all that long ago, but before it was understood that many substances can harbor causes of disease too small to see.  Reports mention the idea that some sort of bad air or miasma carried the disease but they also say that the sanitation situation, especially the handling of human and animal waste, was extremely bad, especially in that section of the city.  Snow was eventually able to convince the authorities to remove the handle on the pump he had targeted and there was a serious drop in the cases of the disease.

A related book on human waste and its implications for our lives is mentioned in this blog entry.  That book "The Big Necessity" by Rose George shocked me in several ways and one of them is the mention of large and important European cities that only in the last few years have installed water treatment plants.