The Case Books of Dr. John Snow
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THE CASE BOOKS OF DR. JOHN SNOW (Medical History, Supplement No. 14) 77F 4 4.Gii DR. JOHN SNOW (1813-1858) This photograph was one of a series entitled Literary and Scientific Portrait Club which consisted of a uniform set of portraits, assembled some time during or after 1857, of more than 1,100 eminent, literary and scientific men of the time. The terms of admission to the "club" required "each member having a photograph of himself taken by the artists of the club, Messrs. Maull and Polybank, 55 Gracechurch Street and 1 87a Piccadilly, at the cost of IOs. 6d. including an impression of himself". (J. S. Bowerbank, Literary and Scientific Portrait Club, Heinz Archive and Library of the National Portrait Gallery, London, File P 106, 1-20.) Copyright © The Trustee, The Wellcome Trust, 1994. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission. ISBN 0 85484 061 3 Supplements to Medical History may be obtained by post from Professional and Scientific Publications, BMA House, Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9JR. FIGURES paige Figure 1: The entry with the mistake in Mrs. Rothery's address. xliii Figure 2: Entry for 21 December 1848 in which Snow recorded a visit to Norfolk. 32 Figure 3: Entry describing a dental extraction by James Robinson. 39 Figure 4: Snow's letter to Professor Brande arranging an appointment and the Case Book entry for it. 257 Figure 5: 7 April, 1853, entry describing Snow's first administration of chloroform to Queen Victoria. 272 Figure 6: 14 April, 1857, entry describing Snow's second administration of chloroform to Queen Victoria. 472 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am most grateful to Sir Gordon Wolstenholme and Sir Christopher Booth, in turn Harveian Librarians of the Royal College of Physicians of London, for allowing this publication of unique manuscript material in the College's possession. The transcription was made possible only by the kindness of Mr. Geoffrey Davenport, Librarian of the Royal College of Physicians of London, who allowed me unlimited access to the original manuscripts and who has been unwaveringly supportive of the project since its inception in 1985. I am most grateful to him, and to his colleagues, for their expert help so freely given during the last nine years. I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Dr. Melvin Earles, the distinguished historian of pharmacy. Making light of his other academic work, he willingly undertook the time- consuming task of transcribing all of Snow's prescriptions and other pharmaceutical notations. The great majority of these consist of drugs which are unfamiliar to present-day students, with the prescribed dosages denoted in the nowadays obscure apothecaries' measure. In addition, Dr. Earles has written a learned commentary on the historical background to Snow's pharmaceutical entries, and has provided a glossary of the drugs which Snow commonly used. The expert graphological opinions of Dr. Anne Summers, Curator in the Department of Manuscripts at the British Library, have been most helpful in deciphering several of Snow's more cryptic entries. I have valued the encouragement, and the helpful comments of Dr. Richard Atkinson and Sir Ian Fraser, each of whom has previously examined the Case Books and written erudite papers based on them. My work could not have been completed without the help of a large number of people who have charge of unique manuscript collections and other archival material. I am particularly indebted to David Stewart, Librarian at the Royal Society of Medicine, to Ian Lyle, Librarian of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and to Janina Morris, Librarian at the Medical College of the Royal Hospital of St. Bartholomew. I am grateful to Christine Patel, the History Librarian at St. George's Hospital Medical School for allowing me to reproduce the manuscript letter written by John Snow to Professor Brande. It is a pleasure to acknowledge the assistance of Librarians, and their staffs, at the British Library, the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London's Guildhall Library, the Greater London Record Office, the Royal Society of Medicine, the British Medical Association, the National Postal Museum, the City of Westminster Local History Library, the National Army Museum, the National Maritime Museum, the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn, and Lambeth Palace. I am glad to acknowledge the guidance which I have received from Professor William Bynum, Head of the Academic Unit at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, and from Caroline Tonson-Rye, assistant editor of Medical History. Their expertise and advice have been invaluable. My wife, Elizabeth, and our children, Charlotte, Nicolette, and Thomas, have shared my enthusiasm for this work. It could not have been undertaken without their wholehearted support, and would not have been completed without the many sacrifices which they have willingly made during the last nine years. Richard H. Ellis vii THE CASE BOOKS OF DR. JOHN SNOW NOTE ON THE INDEXES The page numbers in these indexes refer to the pages of the original manuscripts. They appear within the transcription inside curly brackets, and they are also indicated in the margins. The people, places, and medical conditions listed in these indexes are noted in the form in which John Snow described them. Those people whom he did not name are entered under the name of the persons to whom they were related (e.g. Aikin, boy ofMr. Chas.), or their employer (e.g. Barker, servant of Mr.), or their profession (e.g. attorney in Norwich), or the place from which they came (e.g. Cambridgeshire, lady from). As pointed out in the Introduction (p.xxviii), Snow sometimes spelt surnames in more than one way, and in this and other circumstances where it is not always possible to tell if they apply to the same person each version has a separate entry. As with people, Snow did not always refer to a certain place in the same way, or may not always have given the full name. Some entries therefore may refer to the same place, but since it is impossible to be sure, they have been listed separately. In the Index of Medical Conditions the entry relating to co-existent diseases refers to illnesses from which his patients suffered in addition to that for which the operation was intended (see Introduction p.xxxvi). 567 INDEX OF DENTISTS A F Anderson, Mr., 314 Featherstone, Mr., 290, 607, 628, 860 Ash, Mr., 538, 645 Fletcher, Mr., 49, 247, 349, 383, 399, 404, 428, 451, 461,478,485,519,532,535,538,568,606,629, 640, 642, 658, 703, 742, 763, 795, 800, 804, 809, 825, 846, 849 B Barclay, Mr., 372 Bell, Mr., 484, 760, 807, 859 G Bigg, Mr., 673-675, 696, 715, 760, 802, 829, 837, George, Mr., 327 876-877, 882, 886, 897, 904, 910, 917 Gilbert, Mr., 562 Gregson, Mr., 834, 844 C Canton, 417-418 H Canton, Mr., 230, 293, 324, 330, 338-339, 345, Hampson, Mr., 34, 228, 543-544 358, 369, 375-376, 380, 394, 397-399, 407, 410, Harrison, Mr., 128, 176, 189 420-421,4426, 436, 442, 452-454, 462, 473, 475, Hartry, Mr., 656, 664, 742 480,485,488,491,493,496, 505, 518, 523, 528, Heath, Mr., 545, 751 537,540-541,549-550,558,571,601,606,617, Hepburn, Mr., 427, 571, 810 624-625, 629, 636, 640, 647, 651, 659, 663, 684, Hockley, Mr., 727 696,711,713,718,721,727,731,735,758,760, 767, 790, 810, 837, 839, 842, 853, 855, 872, 878-879, 897, 912-913 Canton, Mr. A., 278, 280, 286 Ibbotson, Mr., 879 Canton, Mr. Alfred, 222, 243, 279, 289, 843 Canton, Mr. W. F., 764 Cartwright, Mr., 421, 461, 472, 504, 527, 531, 536, 547, 549, 554, 557, 577, 582, 629, 632, 637, Jarman, Mr., 835 639-640, 652, 670, 703, 712, 742, 746, 856-857, Jones, Mr., 633 874, 879-880, 885, 902,906,915,918 Cartwright, Jnr., Mr., 453, 478, 486 Cartwright, Mr. S., 518, 528, 558, 610, 630, 639, K 643, 663, 671, 695, 729, 746-747, 769, 795, 805, Kempton, Mr., 63, 291, 372, 423, 630, 634, 740, 840, 875 789 Cartwright, Mr. Sam'l, 666, 708 Cattlin, Mr., 250, 369, 482-483 Clark, Mr., 242 L Clarke, assistant of Mr., 89 Lintott, Mr., 21, 65, 84, 380, 386, 392, 407, 413, Clarke, Mr., 43, 89, 244, 255, 721 447, 456,473, 635-636, 659, 675, 692, 743, 758, Clendon, Mr., 424 831, 850, 856, 866-867, 888 Cook, Mr., 646 Lukyn, Mr., 626 Cook, Mr. Augustus, 645 Cooke, Mr. Aug., 700 Crampten, Mr., 156, 214, 292, 295, 487, 489, 524, M 608, 610, 627, 632, 635, 637, 644-645, 659, 684, May, Mr., 756 692, 705, 738, 779, 870-871, 889, 908 Merryweather, Mr., 810 Moseley, Mr. Ephraim, 495 D dentist, un-named, 339, 578 N Napier, Mr., 900 Nasmyth, Mr., 233, 356, 373, 483, 566, 587, 657, 693 E Nasmyth, partner of Mr., 693 Eden, Mr., 202, 292, 324, 384, 641 Normansell, Mr., 568, 583, 759, 906 568 Index ofDentists p s Parkington, Mr., 380 Salter, Mr., 527, 802, 838, 904 Parkinson, Mr., 743, 855, 896 Saunders, Mr., 121, 446, 511, 640, 689, 693, 698, Pedley, Mr., 403 702, 705, 707, 709-710, 712, 715, 725, 727-730, 733-735, 738-739, 741, 745, 759, 765, 768-769, R 784, 787, 789, 795, 797-799, 801, 803-804, Rahn, Mr., 627, 841, 874, 895, 916-917, 919 806-807, 810, 825, 829-831, 835-839, 841-842, Robinson, Mr., 50, 56, 358, 493-494, 531, 554, 846, 852, 861-862, 865, 867, 869, 873-874, 876, 594-595,645,666, 710 878, 880-881, 884-885, 889, 897, 901,907-912, Rogers, Mr., 41, 51, 127, 198, 255, 259, 327, 331, 914-918 333, 342-343, 349, 352-353, 362-363, 374, Scott, Mr., 601, 636, 700, 843 380-381, 388, 391, 393-394, 396, 408,410,415, Sercombe, Mr., 352, 362-363, 463, 622, 852, 421,430,447,468-469, 512, 531, 551, 553-554, 857-858, 860, 864, 901 562, 578, 584, 603, 626, 637, 640, 664, 683, 690, Sheffield, Mr., 553 693, 713, 723 Rogers, Mr.