John Snow was the first person to do an epidemiologic study on the cholera outbreak in London. Snow lived near the city of Soho, where there was a huge outbreak of the disease, and …show more content…
The device he used to pinpoint where the disease occurred is called a voronoi diagram. He used a map to show all the deaths in the area. He found that most of the deaths were in a crowded near, surrounding the Broad Street Pump. This led him to believe that the pump was the cause of the disease. He then used the map to determine who was most likely to use the pump, and it was most likely those who lived in the city of Soho. He drew a curved line around the pump and found that if you lived inside the line, than the Broad Street water pump was your nearest source for water. He found that most of the deaths were those who lived inside the curve. With this analysis of the cholera outbreak, he convinced authorities that the water pump was the source of the disease (Thomas, 2010). Nowadays we use the voronoi diagram to track the spreading of …show more content…
He figured out the cause of the cholera outbreak in London by using a map and tracking where the deaths occurred. He also convinced authorities that the water pump was the cause of the outbreak and with proof from his map, he got them to get rid of it. Researchers can use his epidemiologic concepts to combat diseases present today due to environmental threats. With the help of John Snow and the Broad Street Pump, we now have the ability to determine the environmental threats that cause diseases present