Cholera has always ranked high among the deadliest diseases to plague mankind. However, it was even more dangerous when doctors and scientists didn't know what caused it or how to prevent its exponential spread. (Image by Wikimedia Commons)
"Cesspits, Cholera, and Conflict over the Broad Street Pump takes place on the evening of September 7, 1854 at Vestry Hall in Soho, Greater London. The event is a meeting of a special emergency response committee of the local Board of Governors and Directors of the Poor of St. James Parish, who have convened to respond to the deadly outbreak of cholera that has claimed the lives of more than 500 parish residents over the preceding eight days. Historically, the outcome of this meeting was the decision to remove the pump handle from a contaminated neighborhood pump on Broad Street. This decision and the events leading up to it are considered a defining moment in the development of modern approaches to public health."
The Burdens of Disease: Epidemics and Human Response in Western History by 
Love in the Time of Cholera by While the people of modern London have their fair share of problems, cholera is not one of them. The disease, however, is far from vanquished, and still exists in other countries. One recent outbreak took place in Haiti and left the country devastated.
The map Dr. John Snow used to track the spread of the disease was fundamental to ending the 1854 cholera epidemic. (Image by mediainstitute.edu)
Dr. John Snow, father of epidemiology (Image by ucla.org)
