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Podcast: The DemystifySci Podcast
Episode: The Shocking Origins of Epidemiology - Dr. Jim Downs, Gettysburg College
Description: We take for granted today that public health systems around the world have the capacity to trace the progression of outbreaks, to determine how cancer clusters are linked to environmental effects, how dirty water causes outbreaks of transmissible illnesses... but where did all this knowledge come from? Contrary to popular belief, it wasn't from John Snow's identifying the origin of the Cholera epidemic as the pump on Broad Street. No, John Snow was using techniques that were passed to him fully formed. The real source of epidemiological tools lies in the brutal and bloody arc of the trans-Atlantic slave...