如题所述
原文：
John Snow was a famous doctor in London - so expert, indeed, that he attended Queen Victoria as her personal physician.
But he became inspired when he thought about helping ordinary people exposed to cholera.
This was the deadly disease of its day.
Neither its cause nor its cure was understood.
So many thousands of terrified people died every time there was an outbreak.
John Snow wanted to face the challenge and solve this problem.
He knew that cholera would never be controlled until its cause was found.
He became interested in two theories that possibly explained how cholera killed people. The first suggested that cholera multiplied in the air.
A cloud of dangerous gas floated around until it found its victims.
The second suggested that people absorbed this disease into their bodies with their meals.
From the stomach the disease quickly attacked the body and soon the affected person died.
John Snow suspected that the second theory was correct but he needed evidence.
So when another outbreak hit London in 1854, he was ready to begin his enquiry.
As the disease spread quickly through poor neighbourhoods, he began to gather information.
In two particular streets, the cholera outbreak was so severe that more than 500 people died in ten days.
He was determined to find out why.
First he marked on a map the exact places where all the dead people had lived.
This gave him a valuable clue about the cause of the disease.
Many of the deaths were near the water pump in Broad Street (especially numbers 16, 37, 38 and 40).
He also noticed that some houses (such as 20 and 21 Broad Street and 8 and 9 Cambridge Street) had had no deaths.
He had not foreseen this, so he made further investigations.
He discovered that these people worked in the pub at 7 Cambridge Street.
They had been given free beer and so had not drunk the water from the pump. It seemed that the water was to blame.
Next, John Snow looked into the source of the water for these two streets.
He found that it came from the river polluted by the dirty water from London.
He immediately told the astonished people in Broad Street to remove the handle from the pump so that it could not be used.
Soon afterwards the disease slowed down. He had shown that cholera was spread by germs and not in a cloud of gas.
In another part of London, he found supporting evidence from two other deaths that were linked to the Broad Street outbreak.
A woman, who had moved away from Broad Street, liked the water from the pump so much that she had it delivered to her house every day.
Both she and her daughter died of cholera after drinking the water.
With this extra evidence John Snow was able to announce with certainty that polluted water carried the virus.
To prevent this from happening again, John Snow suggested that the source of all the water supplies be examined.
The water companies were instructed not to expose people to polluted water any more. Finally "King Cholera" was defeated.
译文：
约翰·斯诺是伦敦一位著名的医生，他是如此的专业，以至于他以维多利亚女王的私人医生的身份去看病。但是，当他想到帮助普通人接触霍乱时，他受到了鼓舞。这是当时致命的疾病。其原因和治疗方法都不清楚。
每次爆发都有成千上万惊恐的人死亡。约翰斯诺想面对挑战，解决这个问题。他知道，除非找到霍乱的病因，否则霍乱是无法控制的。
他开始对两种可能解释霍乱如何致死的理论感兴趣。第一种是霍乱在空气中繁殖。一团危险气体四处飘荡，直到找到受害者。第二个建议是人们在吃饭时把这种疾病吸收到体内。这种病从胃部迅速侵袭身体，很快病人就死了。
约翰斯诺怀疑第二种理论是正确的，但他需要证据。因此，当1854年伦敦再次爆发疫情时，他准备开始调查。随着疾病在贫困地区迅速传播，他开始收集信息。在两条街道上，霍乱的爆发非常严重，10天内就有500多人死亡。他决心找出原因。
首先，他在地图上标出所有死者居住的确切地点。这给了他一条关于病因的有价值的线索。许多死者都是在布罗德街的水泵附近（特别是16、37、38和40号）。他还注意到一些房屋（如20号和21号宽街以及8号和9号剑桥街）没有死亡。
他没有预见到这一点，所以他作了进一步的调查。他发现这些人在剑桥街7号的酒吧工作。他们得到了免费啤酒，所以没有喝泵里的水。看来应该归咎于水。
接着，约翰·斯诺调查了这两条街道的水源。他发现它来自被伦敦脏水污染的河流。他立即告诉布罗德街上惊愕的人们把泵的把手取下来，这样泵就不能用了。不久之后，疾病减缓了。他已经证明霍乱是由细菌传播的，而不是由气体云传播的。
在伦敦的另一个地方，他发现了另外两起与宽街疫情有关的死亡事件的佐证。一个从布罗德街搬走的妇女非常喜欢水泵里的水，她每天都把它送到家里。她和女儿都是喝了这水后死于霍乱。有了这些额外的证据，约翰斯诺能够肯定地宣布污染的水携带了病毒。
为了防止这种情况再次发生，约翰斯诺建议检查所有水源。水务公司奉命不再让人们接触受污染的水。最终“霍乱王”被击败。
