ABSTRACT
Such stories, as Nancy Krieger (1992) has noted, are of course to a large extent self-serving historiography. They are told to justify the present, and seek antecedents that fit with contemporary preoccupations. The story of Snow’s empiricism in uncovering the environmental cause of disease certainly risks presenting the ‘truth’ as the triumph of progressive science, rather than as contingent, and subject to the social and political determinants of shifts in scientific understanding. However, Snow-as-metaphor has been so serviceable for public health, we might be forgiven perhaps for utilising the elements of the story yet again for exploring some recurring themes in the relationships between environments, technologies and public health.
