Effect of the Investigation
Dr. Snow's investigation of the cholera outbreak of 1854 is largely ignored at the time. Six months after the outbreak the Board of Health meets to consider the epidemic and its causes. The Board decides that there is no evidence that the pump water has ever been contaminated. Nothing is done to prevent the sewage in local cesspools from continuing to seep into the water of neighbouring wells and contaminating it.
Today, however, Dr. Snow is revered as the founder of epidemiology, the branch of medicine that studies the causes, patterns, and control of disease.
