First modern infectious disease map: A father of epidemiology is John Snow – a London-based physician who figured out how cholera was spreading in London in 1854. He created a map of deaths, working in the way that data journalists do, to try to pinpoint the source of a cholera outbreak. At the time, most scientists believed cholera was caused by unhealthy gases. Germs, at that point, weren’t understood. By creating a map, Snow figured out that the source of a cholera outbreak was a public water pump. [Cholera is caused by a bacteria that can thrive in water.] He had the pump turned off and the cholera outbreak ended. Click here to see his map and a story about how Snow became known as one of the world’s first disease detectives.
