Dr. Root gave an introduction to John Snow–the father of epidemiology. Dr. Root discussed how Snow’s famous cholera map is such a small fraction of his work, which included a lot of scientific research and studies. “The Ghost Map” by Steven Johnson portrays the whole picture of John Snow’s research, and how his discovery led to a paradigm shift in how scientists understood disease transmission. Dr. Root then connected the book that we are currently reading, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, to Snow’s discovery of the transmittance of cholera (which had overruled the previous theory of “miasma”).
I thought it was very interesting how Dr. Root connected how John Snow’s work has paved the way for her own research. She also described how far epidemiology research with a geographical component has come since then and that new fields of research have been created based off of these original ideas (such as landscape genetics).
Definitely a big focus of this class is connecting the past to the present through various scientific stories and developments. Dr. Root did a wonderful job of that and tying it to Kuhn is a bonus, from my perspective. I also put the Ghost Map on my reading list. Steven Johnson is a good writer who mixes in humor with his stories and makes it fun to read about science history.