ABSTRACT
This chapter explores new practices in epidemiology and sanitation control and an emergent knowledge of germs as a cause of disease helped to form a growing sense of how epidemics are handled. The London cholera epidemics came at the beginning of a period of increasing advances in the understanding of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, typhoid, and rabies, which then lead to the development of new approaches for handling the infections that would erupt in the next century and a half. John Snow examined from a class perspective, cholera, as it appeared in urban settings, began to provide a bit of a puzzle for public health workers who were beginning to explore the impact in further detail. Snow continued to draw connections between cholera and the water systems, arguing that the practice of flushing sewers into the river made the 1849 epidemic worse. Several nations convened a meeting of representatives from governments to explore combined strategies for addressing cholera.
