Ask the Scholar
Document scope · 1 page
Scholar
Ask about this object, its catalog metadata, its source description, or the page inventory.
For page-specific OCR and visual context, open one of the page chats.
Source Description
In 1854, following a series of debilitating cholera outbreaks in London, Dr. John Snow studied patterns of deaths, plotting their locations on a map overlaid with the city’s water districts. He concluded that a contaminated well dispensing a waterborne “cholera poison” was to blame for the outbreak. Following his lead, Boston’s physicians, including Dr. Howard Damon, mapped the spread of diseases in an effort to understand the connection between health and environment. Shown here, Damon’s map pinpoints individual cases within clearly delineated “unhealthy districts” in Boston; his accompanying report concluded that these outbreaks correlated directly with “overcrowding and imperfect drainage.”
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
8336hc374
label
Localities of one thousand cases of intestinal diseases (diarrhoea, cholera-infantum & dysentery) in children, for the months of July, August & Sept. 1863, 4 & 5
core
obj
dtoType
map
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
8336hc374
contentType
map
stage
normalized
title
Localities of one thousand cases of intestinal diseases (diarrhoea, cholera-infantum & dysentery) in children, for the months of July, August & Sept. 1863, 4 & 5
description
In 1854, following a series of debilitating cholera outbreaks in London, Dr. John Snow studied patterns of deaths, plotting their locations on a map overlaid with the city’s water districts. He concluded that a contaminated well dispensing a waterborne “cholera poison” was to blame for the outbreak. Following his lead, Boston’s physicians, including Dr. Howard Damon, mapped the spread of diseases in an effort to understand the connection between health and environment. Shown here, Damon’s map pinpoints individual cases within clearly delineated “unhealthy districts” in Boston; his accompanying report concluded that these outbreaks correlated directly with “overcrowding and imperfect drainage.”
date
["[1866]"]
year
1866
rights
No known copyright restrictions.
rightsUri
No known restrictions on use.
reuseAllowed
no restrictions
language
English
identifierLocal
06_01_016346
creators
Boston (Mass.). City Physician's Office
J.H. Bufford & Sons
Damon, Howard Franklin, 1833-1884
institution
Boston Public Library
collections
Urban Maps
Boston and New England Maps
Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center Collection
subjects
Diarrhea in children--Massachusetts--Boston--Maps
Cholera--Massachusetts--Boston--Maps
Dysentery--Massachusetts--Boston--Maps
Boston (Mass.)--Maps
subjectsGeographic
Boston
Massachusetts
North and Central America
Suffolk (county)
United States
genreBasic
Maps
typeOfResource
Cartographic
country
United States
state
Massachusetts
county
Suffolk
city
Boston
thumbnailUrl
largeImageUrl
pageCount
1
source
import
pubPlace
[Boston]
publisher
[Publisher not identified]
Source extras
institutionArkId
sf268508b
collectionArkId
9s1621613
schema:latitude
42.35
schema:longitude
-71.05
extent
1 map ; 40 x 43 cm
notes
Conservation of this piece was funded by an anonymous donor.
Oriented with north to the upper left.
From Communication from the City Physician on Asiatic cholera. City of Boston, city document no. 21. [Boston, Mass.], 1866.
hasTranscription
no
dcId
8336hc374
type
map
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
photo
mediaId
79e04af6ce038ba9