Editing Soho (section)

===Cholera outbreak===
{{see also|1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak}}
{{anchor|Broad_Street_pump}}
[[File:John Snow memorial and pub.jpg|thumb|[[John Snow (physician)|John Snow]] memorial, with the pub shown in the background]]
A significant event in the history of [[epidemiology]] and [[public health]] was [[John Snow (physician)|John Snow]]'s study of an [[Broad Street cholera outbreak|1854 outbreak]] of [[cholera]] in Soho. He identified the cause of the outbreak as water from the public [[water pump|pump]] at the junction of Broad Street (now [[Broadwick Street]]) and Cambridge Street (now Lexington Street), close to the rear wall of what is today the [[John Snow (public house)|John Snow]] [[public house]].{{sfn|Weinreb|Hibbert|Keay|Keay|2008|p=101}}{{sfn|Johnson|2006|p=229}}

Snow mapped the addresses of the sick and noted that they were mostly people whose nearest access to water was the Broad Street pump. He persuaded the authorities to remove the handle of the pump, thus preventing any more of the infected water from being collected. The spring below the pump was later found to have been contaminated with sewage. This is an early example of epidemiology, public health medicine and the application of science—the [[germ theory of disease]]—in a real-life crisis.{{sfn|Johnson|2006|p=299}} Science writer [[Steven Johnson (author)|Steven Johnson]] has written about the changes related to the cholera outbreak, and notes that almost every building on the street that existed in 1854 has since been replaced.{{sfn|Johnson|2006|pp=227–228}} A replica of the pump, with a memorial plaque and without a handle (to signify Snow's action to halt the outbreak) was erected in 1992 near the location of the original.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://history.lshtm.ac.uk/2015/03/02/gone-not-forgotten-dr-john-snow-memorial-pump-broadwick-street/|title=Gone for a while but not forgotten: the Dr. John Snow memorial pump on Broadwick Street|publisher=Centre for History in Public Health|date=2 March 2015|access-date=31 October 2017|archive-date=7 November 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171107003907/http://history.lshtm.ac.uk/2015/03/02/gone-not-forgotten-dr-john-snow-memorial-pump-broadwick-street/|url-status=dead}}</ref>