ABSTRACT
Cholera revealed the social pressures on the development of science, and the manner in which the incomplete and uncertain logic of scientific argument increased the vulnerability of the scientific world to outside pressures. There were the internal pressures of the scientific community which still exist, pressures produced by the distribution of research resources and publication opportunity, pressures felt by Thomas Latta, pressures of prestige upon innovation. Social and economic pressures may still influence science in the choice of research projects or in the selections of different aspects of a discovery for development, but the greater completeness of scientific logic makes it less likely that sectional and class interests can line up behind competing schools of thought. The historian of cholera gains access to the past through the pain and fear of many thousands of people.
