Summary

After the removal of the pump handle, an engineer named Edmund Cooper launched an investigation of the Broad Street epidemic for the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers. He was sent to investigate rumor that corpses had been unearthed during the evacuation. He doubted that hundreds of years old corpses would have any impact on the people’s health. He needed a way to represent the patterns of the deaths caused by the outbreak. He made a map that the layperson could understand.

On the map he showed new sewer lines and the locations of cholera deaths and the original site of the plague pit which he indicated was centered over Little Marlborough Street. It was obvious that there was another source since there were only few deaths near the plague pit. If the source was a noxious gas, those living immediately...