A review by koalathebear
The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson
4.0
It really was a very fascinating read.
With references to the Dickens' novel "Out Mutual Friend" and all number of other fascinating facts and figures about Victorian London, I found this book very absorbing. I had no idea that Fanny Burney underwent a mastectomy without the benefit of nothing except wine cordial to dull the pain. I had no idea that the living conditions in London at that time were so tightly compacted and squalid.
I loved the descriptions of the various scavengers who lived in London at that time - the ones who scoured the rivers, the ones who scoured the shores - the resistance of common understanding at that time to the notion that the disease might be spread by water - most believing in a concept of a 'miasma' that infected those who came into contact with it.
With references to the Dickens' novel "Out Mutual Friend" and all number of other fascinating facts and figures about Victorian London, I found this book very absorbing. I had no idea that Fanny Burney underwent a mastectomy without the benefit of nothing except wine cordial to dull the pain. I had no idea that the living conditions in London at that time were so tightly compacted and squalid.
I loved the descriptions of the various scavengers who lived in London at that time - the ones who scoured the rivers, the ones who scoured the shores - the resistance of common understanding at that time to the notion that the disease might be spread by water - most believing in a concept of a 'miasma' that infected those who came into contact with it.