Zika The Ghost Map Summary

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The relationship between medicine and public health has a complex aspect. They both are essential to keep communities safe from illnesses. However, medicine focuses on individuals who are ill and public health focuses on preventing illness. The two fields of study share epidemiology as a common source of knowledge to achieve their goals. The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson tells the story of John Snow, the man known as “the father of Epidemiology”. Donald McNeil JR. follows a modern day use of epidemiology as a basis for medicine and public health in his book Zika: The Emerging Epidemic. This essay details the role of epidemiology as a connector between prevention and treatment of an illness. In 1854, London was the leading industrialized city in the world with a population of more than 2 million without an infrastructure that can support the residents. It was inevitable that an infectious disease outbreak such as Cholera can occur and overwhelm city officials and residents. Due to Snow’s critical thinking going against the norm, he tracked the source of cholera and developed a prevention strategy. As Johnson (p.160) discusses, despite all Snow’s skeptics, he recommended the removal of the Broad Street pump and the outbreak quickly subsided. Considering the time, Snow gave a new perspective on how disease was spread. He used evidence based knowledge to challenge the efforts put in prevention and treatment of a disease. According to Johnson (p. 146), Snow’s ability to observe urban life combined with his medical …show more content…

Through his book, he explained the connection between public health and medicine using disease epidemiology. Even though Zika emerged as a new threat, there was an epidemiological surveillance being conducted since its first discovery in 1947 (McNeil, p.17). Thus, both medicine and public health based their search for solutions on this

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