Mapping disease

My final project investigates the different ways of mapping disease throughout history and how this can be seen as a product of attitudes towards disease and understanding of the underlying mechanisms at a particular time. While now producing maps of disease is a basic tool in epidemiology and public health, this way of visualizing disease patterns did not develop until around the turn of the 19th century. Prompted in part by serious epidemics of cholera and yellow fever, maps became an important tool in the mission to understand the mode of transmission of disease. In particular, maps were key in the debate over and development of germ theory. Later, maps were also used to disseminate awareness to the general public, and no longer remained the preserve of scientists and public health officials in academic contexts. For this initial map collection I aimed to display three maps that show significantly different ways of thinking about infectious disease. In particular, they show three key stages in the understanding of disease: initial mapping to attempt to discern a mode of transmission, knowledge of a vector and its range, and an attempt to communicate the urgency and danger of disease to the public.

Original map of the Transvaal or South-African Republic

This map is entitled the “Original map of the Transvaal or South-African Republic” and was published in 1875. It was the first comprehensive and accurate map of the Transvaal and was published just before the outbreak of the First Boer War. The map…

World Map of the Major Tropical Diseases

This map, produced in 1944, shows major “tropical diseases” and where they occur in the world. A stylized image of the vector or symptoms of the disease is drawn over each afflicted region. Along the bottom of the map is a key describing which image…

History of the epidemic spasmodic cholera of Russia

This map shows how the cholera epidemic spread across the world from 1817-1831. The only cities labeled on the map are places at which cholera was recorded during the epidemic, clearly showing the impressive geographical range the epidemic reached.…