Disease Maps
Epidemics on the Ground
- Contents
- Review Quotes

List of Illustrations
Part I. The Idea That Is Disease
Chapter 1. Moving Forward: Cartographies of Disease
Chapter 2. Mapping Symptoms, Making Disease
Chapter 3. Body and World: The Sixteenth Century
Chapter 4. Diseases in Cities: The Neighborhoods of Plague
Chapter 5. The Yellow Fever Thing
Part II. Cholera: The Exemplar
Chapter 6. “Asiatic Cholera”: India and Then the World
Chapter 7. Bureaucratic Cholera
Chapter 8. John Snow’s Cholera
Chapter 9. South London Choleras: William Farr, John Snow, and John Simon
Chapter 10. Choleric Broad Street: The Neighborhood Disease
Chapter 11. Cholera, the Exemplar
Part III. The Legacy and Its Future
Chapter 12. Cancer as Cholera
Afterword
Acknowledgments
Notes on the Illustrations
Illustration Credits
Notes
Works Cited and Consulted
Index“In Disease Maps, University of British Columbia medical geographer Tom Koch explores the rich history of using maps to visualize epidemics, from early attempts to chart the menace of plague as it raced across medieval Europe and John Snow’s iconic cholera maps of the 19th century to modern-day depictions of cancer clusters and the spread of AIDS. Festooned with great old illustrations, maps, diagrams, and charts from outbreaks past, Disease Maps urges the reader to witness the genius and folly of the past in order to better map the epidemics of the future.”
"Remarkable. . . . If most people are ever inclined to think about disease mapping, it’s usually in relation to John Snow’s map of the 1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak in London. Snow, we’re told in the usual triumphalist account, transcended medieval theories of disease transmission . . . ; he plotted cases on a street map, found they centered on a water well, removed that well’s handle, and saved lives. Koch demolishes this history of medical mapping with vicious relish. The result is a marvelous reverse-detective story."—Boston Globe
“Disease Maps is an extraordinary visual and narrative treat. I have come to look forward to Tom Koch’s books for the wonderful and unique way that he can synthesize data and present it visually and in the process tell us magnificent stories.”
“This is a masterful book in conception and structure. It is also extremely well written. What we find on reading is an exquisite telling of the history of the medical science of disease. The collection of medical maps, diagrams, and other illustrations is impressive in scope—there are many disease maps shown that have not been publicly available before or collected in one place.”
"This unconventional history charts the rise of epidemiology by examining how maps have been used to follow the spread of disease."—Science News
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