Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure
.
.
A portion of Dr Robert Baker's cholera map of Leeds,
, showing the districts affected by
cholera. Source:Gilbert(
,Fig.
)
to shine in the shadows cast by Adolphe Quételet, who regarded moral and social
statistics as his own domain.
InOctober
,the firstcaseofasiatic choleraoccurredinGreat Britain, andover
peoplediedintheepidemicthatensuedoverthenext
monthsorso(Gilbert,
).Subsequent choleraepidemics in
-
and
-
producedsimilarly
large death tolls, but the water-borne cause of the disease was unknown until
when Dr John Snow produced his famous dot map
(Snow,
) showing deaths
due to cholera clustered around the Broad Street pump in London. his was indeed
a landmark graphic discovery, but it occurred at the end of the period, roughly
-
,which marks a high point in the application of thematic cartography to human
(social, medical, ethnic) topics.hefirstknown disease map of cholera (Fig.
.
),due
to Dr Robert Baker (
), shows the districts of Leeds 'affected by cholera' in the
particularly severe
outbreak.
I show this figure to make another point - why Baker's map did not lead to a 'eu-
reka' experience, while John Snow's did. Baker used a town plan of Leeds that had
been divided into districts. Of a population of
in all of Leeds, Baker mapped
Image: http://www.math.yorku.ca/SCS/Gallery/images/snow
.jpg
