Cholera is a disease of ancient origins, probably already widespread in the days of Hippocrates, if not before. However, the first recorded case dates back to an Indian medical report of 1563. In more modern times, the history of the disease began in 1817, when cholera spread globally starting from the Ganges Delta in India. Since then, millions and millions of people have been victims of pandemics spread all over the world .
In the early nineteenth century, cholera struck Europe's urban areas, especially port cities, on a massive and massive basis. At the time it was believed that the disease was transmitted by the inhalation of miasmas from affected individuals.
When cholera struck Great Britain, reaching London in 1832, the observations of the doctor John Snow led to demonstrate the mode of transmission of cholera by applying a rational epidemiological method, still valid today. The theory of miasms, in fact, did not explain why the incidence of the disease was different in districts of the city equally in the degradation. Snow hypothesized that the cholera agent was acquired by ingestion and eliminated in the faeces, concluding that water was involved in the transmission of the disease.
Snow focused his attention on a public pump used to supply water to Broad street (now Broadwick street). On a map of the Soho area, the doctor recorded the reported cases of cholera, highlighting how they concentrated around the source of water charged with local infections. In the summer of 1854, the handle that operated the pump was removed and the theory of the water origin of the disease demonstrated: starting from that day, the cases of cholera in the area continued to decrease, until they ran out. The fundamental contribution of Snow was fundamental, however it still had to pass a few decades before the identification of the bacterium responsible for cholera.
