Michael Friendly and Howard Wainer, "A History of Data Visualization and Graphic Communication" (Harvard UP, 2021)
New Books in Science, Technology, and Society
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A Brief History of the Cholera Epidemic
One of the great statistical breakthroughs is associated with a cholera epidemic in london. The thinking at the time all had to do with an explanation of cholera as due to bad air. But that was not the qausitive factor. And so along comes john snow, who was somewhat more than your average family doctor. He began to think about water, water, a water born source for cholera. In the the now iconic map of his this dot map of soho, he corded one little square on the map for every single death. There were no cholera deaths around the brewery. It turned out that there were more deaths closer the closer you got
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