Map-making and myth-making in Broad Street: the London cholera epidemic, 1854

Introduction The outbreak of cholera in the vicinity of Golden Square, central London, in the late summer of 1854, and the subsequent removal of the handle from the Broad Street pump, have become an enduring feature of the folklore of public health and epidemiology. To fully understand the incident requires an accurate reconstruction of the role of Dr John Snow, who proposed that cholera was commonly transmitted by drinking water. Modern writers persist in disseminating not the facts but an apocryphal story to support a desired conclusion, as in this representative example: