That doesn’t sound like the formula for a winning book. In
fact, had American science writer Steven Berlin Johnson been a much-published author and something of a
celebrity by the time he wrote it, you might still be hearing the snickers of
literary agents and publishers around Manhattan
Yet Johnson’s 2006 The Ghost Map—subtitled, probably not by Johnson himself, “The Story of
London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the
Modern World”—has developed not just an enduring life, but also a passionate cult
following in unexpected quarters. Writers, including upcoming So19 interview subjects
Charles Finch and David Morrell, refer to it with some reverence. I myself have been a huge fan of the
book since the day I read it in 2008. That doesn’t sound remarkable, but it is.
Hugely squeamish for most of my life, I typically avoid medical discussions like
the plague, to use an appropriate analogy. Yet The Ghost Map delights me, and remains a book I re-read
periodically and recommend often.
The book’s narrative centers on the Londoncholera epidemic of 1854, one of a series of such outbreaks that had dogged England Soho in the heat of late August.
Within ten days, over 500 people were dead. Entire families perished within
hours of each other, though other residents of the congested neighborhood—all
of the workers at the Lion Brewery, for example—were mysteriously spared.
With memories of earlier deaths still fresh, there was vigorous dialogue about
cures and containment strategies. A letter to the Times enthusiastically suggested the ingestion of ether as a
cholera remedy. In the midst of the hubbub, Dr. John Snow—a leading figure in
the then-nascent field of anesthesiology—did something quieter and more
efficacious than write letters to the editor. With support from fellow Soho resident Henry Whitehead, Snow performed the patient
demographic work we now associate with institutions like the CDC, going door to
door to investigate exactly who had been struck and what they had in common.
The answer, he soon confirmed, was water. Those who had drunk from the pump at
Broad (now Broadwick) Street were felled; those who hadn’t, weren’t. The “ghost map” of the book’s title is Snow’s chart of the outbreak, a stark grid of Soho’s
streets overlaid with a pattern of dots that identify precisely who was
stricken, where they lived, and what water they drank.
The idea of contaminated water as a source of disease
doesn’t sound implausible to us today, used as we are to the existence of bacteria
and viruses and vectors. But before the adoption of germ theory it was a
challenging notion, especially when the water in question was noted for its apparent
purity.
The research behind Johnson’s book is impeccable, the prose
lucid and energetic, the selection of detail brilliant. But I think the appeal
of the book goes beyond those hallmarks of good nonfiction writing. The Ghost
Map works because it works like a novel. A mystery novel, in fact.
Which means that it begins, of course, with a memorable villain.
“King Cholera” was a mass murderer crueler than any of the gruesome culprits
featured in the period’s penny dreadfuls. It was lethal, it was persistent, and
it even had a distinct personality: a gleeful delight in the grotesque, a
callousness about the suffering of the already downtrodden, a love for the
unexpected, and more than enough cunning not to be easily caught.
Next, it has a complex puzzle. Why did cholera fell some and
spare others, exempting poor people who might be thought to be the most likely
victims but killing, say, a lady in comfortable Hampstead? Why did it arrive so
suddenly, then depart with equally bewildering speed? With the tests and
technologies we have at our disposal today, these conundrums might not have
felt so daunting. But in 1854, with even a modest investigative instrument like
the stethoscope only two years into its commercial availability, they must have
seemed frightful indeed.
Third, it has a compelling detective. John Snow is a
fascinating figure, with the appreciation for precise systems that have come to
define modern science but also a quirky, hands-on approach to research that is
impossible to imagine from today’s scientists. (He tested ether’s effects on
human subjects using himself.) His
collaborator Whitehead, a curate St. Luke’s Church, was a generous and
gregarious fellow with an intimate knowledge of Soho ’s
residents and a love for discussions of ideas. It would be inaccurate in many
regards to describe the two as a medical Holmes and Watson, but one could
fairly say that their partnership offered a similar, and similarly appealing,
kind of balance. Whitehead could be said to be the heart to Snow’s head, the
conversation that balanced the charting.
Fourth, of course, Johnson’s story has an absolutely riveting
setting. The London of the period generally, and
the Soho of the period specifically, were
mesmerizing in their color, their character, their contrasts.
Last but not least, the main narrative of The Ghost Map has a hopeful ending, at least partially. (As the book notes and the cholera outbreak after the Haiti earthquake, among other news items, reminds us, deadly disease remains very much a fact of life today.) As happens in most great mystery stories, order
was restored to the stricken community. The strategies John Snow proposed—to
clean up the sewage problem, and therefore purify the water supply—weren’t
adopted fast or broadly enough to prevent another outbreak. But his theories
were sufficiently persuasive to lead authorities to remove the handle of the
pump at Broad Street London Thames began to heal, changing back from a stinking open
sewer to something resembling a river again. The scourge of disease abated
slightly, thanks not just to Snow’s cholera discovery but also to the
introduction of germ theory, anesthetics, and antiseptics. The London that
closed out the 19th century was just as colorful and contradictory
as its mid-century ancestor, but it was—slightly but noticeably—less lethal.
The Ghost Map,
that is, works not just as science but as human story, not just as analysis but
as narrative. If you want a riveting mystery set right in the chronological and
geographical heart of the Victorian era, you can’t do better than start here.
Johnson’s other books—including The Invention of Air, Where Good Ideas Come From, and this fall’s Future Perfect—are excellent as well,
and I’m looking forward to Johnson’s PBS series How We Got to Now, which airs in Fall 2014. I gather that one
segment will explain how we “got to” clean drinking water, giving John Snow the
chance to appear on an invention beyond his wildest, semi-etherized dreams. < Suzanne Fox is the editor of Society Nineteen.
Her books include Home Life: A Journey of Rooms and Recollections (Simon & Schuster). A resident of Vero Beach , FL