Decidedly Grim

The Ghost Map
by Steven Johnson

I just finished reading the The Ghost Map (featured in the last two morbid facts) and it is a very interesting book. It centers around the 1854 London cholera epidemic, and the investigator who was able to track down the source of the scourge as a well that had been tainted by cholera-infested sewage. This was a landmark discovery because the theory of the time (called miasma) held that disease was caused by polluted air, rather than germs. The discovery also led to improvements in sewage systems that resulted in a marked decrease in epidemics.

Although the book drags a bit in the last third, the first two-thirds are excellent. My favorite part is actually the first chapter, quoted for today’s Morbid Fact, which discusses the scavenger culture of mid 19th-century England. The depiction of the physical ravages of cholera itself (which will star in a soon-to-come Malady of the Month/Year/Decade entry) are also spellbinding, as are the disgusting details of the filth that city dwellers had to contend with back in those days (when “flushing the toilet” meant throwing the contents of your chamber pot out onto the sidewalk or alley). Above all, this book made me feel grateful to not have been born until we’d figured out modern sanitation systems! A recommended read!

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