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Reviews tagging 'Medical content'
The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson
11 reviews
musicalpopcorn's review against another edition
3.0
The first two thirds of the book were very interesting. Learning about the cholera outbreak and how Snow traced it to the well, as well as the other facts was fascinating. I particularly enjoyed the brief description of the history of anesthetic.
The epilogue kind of threw me off a bit. It felt almost rambly, and I was struggling to connect all the talk about terrorism and nuclear attacks to cholera and Snow. It was interesting to listen to it post-Covid, given that the book was written well before the pandemic, but it was still very strange.
Graphic: Drug use, Medical content, Terminal illness, Death, Chronic illness, Pandemic/Epidemic, Vomit, and Excrement
ambaright's review against another edition
4.5
Graphic: Death, Medical content, and Excrement
Moderate: Child death and Grief
elizafiedler's review against another edition
4.0
Graphic: Medical content, Medical trauma, Vomit, and Excrement
Moderate: Death
Minor: Body horror
the_true_monroe's review against another edition
4.0
Graphic: Death of parent, Child death, Death, Animal death, Medical content, Excrement, and Vomit
cj13's review against another edition
4.5
Graphic: Death, Medical content, Child death, and Gore
Moderate: Classism
anntharai's review against another edition
3.5
Honestly, I’d suggest avoiding the last section. It takes on an intensely nihilistic tone and literally everything will be bad 😂 oh and he states that cities only have themselves to blame if they’re targeted by terrorists because who could resist such a juicy target and that’s a yikes from me.
The final section has been undone through no fault of its own - time passed and the predictions were not correct.
For example the author says that a flu like pandemic is extremely slim, but If the researchers who think it possible believe that such a thing “could easily rival the 1918 pandemic”, he also overestimates the intelligence of people actually listening to scientists in such a situation.
So overall it’s good, just skip the last chapter which is primarily anxiety inducing rants.
Graphic: Medical trauma, Medical content, and Terminal illness
kalebdluca's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Child death, Death, Excrement, Gaslighting, Grief, Gore, Medical content, Terminal illness, and Vomit
doitninetimes's review against another edition
4.0
Graphic: Excrement, Terminal illness, Medical content, Gore, and Death
Minor: Child death
sherbertwells's review against another edition
3.0
“This book is…a case study in how change happens in human society, the turbulent way in which wrong or ineffectual ideas are overthrown by better ones” (xv)
“You can tell the story of the Broad Street outbreak on the scale of a few hundred human lives, drinking water from a pump, getting sick and dying over a few weeks, but in telling the story that way, you limit its perspective, limit is ability to convey a fair account of what really happened, and, more important—why it happened. Once you get to why, the urban development, or the microscopic tight focus of bacteria life cycles. These are causes, too” (95-96)
“The ghosts of the Broad Street outbreak were reassembled for one final portrait, reincarnated as black bars lining the streets of their devastated neighborhood. In dying, they had collectively made a pattern that itself pointed to a fundamental truth, though it took a trained hand to make that pattern visible” (197)
Graphic: Medical content and Excrement
Moderate: Death
Minor: Child death and Death of parent
lezzieborden's review against another edition
3.75
Graphic: Death, Excrement, and Medical content
Moderate: Child death, Death of parent, Grief, and Terminal illness