The “John Snow Pub” – at the corner between Poland Street and Broadwick Street in London – marks the site of the historic Broad Street Pump associated with John Snow‘s discovery, in 1854, that cholera is conveyed by water.
A Blue Plaque, placed by the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2008 as a ‘National Chemical Landamark’ states: “Dr John Snow / (1813-1858) / Founding father of Epidemiology. / In 1854 his research linked / deaths to the water pump / near this site and thus / determined that cholera is / a water borne disease. / 16 June 2008”.
Another little brass plaque remembers that a “Red Granite kerbstone marks the site” of the historic pump, even if today it is not easy to recognize the red granite…
In 2018, the modern replica of the original pump has been moved back to its original site and it now covers the red granite stone.
- Photos 1-5 by Luca Borghi ti.supmacinu|ihgrob.l#| (July 2011) and 6-7 by Isabella Pulci (January 2024)
- Locate the item on this Google Map
Bibliography
– Steven Johnson, The Ghost Map (The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic – and How It Changed Science, Cities and the Modern World), Riverhead Books, New York 2006