News, Outreach

HPAM in Action: Student visits Public Health Landmark


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Natalie Arford, a second year HPAM graduate student, had the opportunity to visit one of the most significant historical landmarks in Public Health during her trip to Europe this past summer. John Snow is considered the Father of Epidemiology. In 1854 there was a severe outbreak of cholera in London. John Snow was a physician who theorized that cholera was caused by germs, not miasmas (bad air and smells), that most people belived caused disease in Snow's day. By interviewing citizens of London, he mapped the cases of disease in the city and determined that a water pump on Broad Street was the probable source of the cholera outbreak. He petioned the city government and was granted permission to remove the handle from the pump, therefore prohibiting anyone from drawing contaminated water. These events are regarded as the founding events of Epidemiology as a science.

Natalie is pictured here with the Broad Street pump, now known as the John Snow pump. The handle is still missing from John Snow's historic Public Health intervention and epidemiologic experiment.


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Natalie Arford next to the original Broad Street pump, the site of John Snow's historic experiment