December 1856: London Doctor comes to Cornwall – Both Halls

Dr John Snow (1813 – 1858), the first to suggest that cholera is a water-borne disease, was a pioneering figure in two different medical specialties, anaesthesia and public health. He administered his first anaesthetic for surgery in January1847, just three months after the initial public demonstration of its use in Boston, USA. Over the following 11 years until his death, he carried out much research and also anaesthetised approximately 5000 patients; he was undoubtedly the foremost anaesthetist of the time. Such is the high regard in which he is held by the profession to this day that he was voted ‘greatest doctor of all time’ by readers of the UK publication Hospital Doctor in 2003. Snow recorded the anaesthetics administered by him in handwritten diaries. They reveal that his medical practice was almost entirely confined to London and that he rarely left the capital, even for holidays. He anaesthetised just six patients at distances more than fifty miles from the city; one each in Somerset, Norfolk, near Manchester and Gloucestershire, and two in Cornwall, both in December 1956. This lecture with Declan will address Snow’s time in the latter county in detail. Included will be references to precisely where and when the two operations took place, information regarding the patients cared for by him and also concerning the surgeon with whom he worked, how he might have travelled and finally, possible reasons for his visit to Cornwall.