The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World

by Steven Johnson

When you read through that endless stream of quack cholera cures published in the daily papers, what strikes you most is not that they are all, almost without exception, based on anecdotal evidence. What’s striking is that they never apologize for this shortcoming. They never pause to say, “Of course, this is all based on anecdotal evidence, but hear me out.” There’s no shame in these letters, no awareness of the imperfection of the method,

This book was written in 2006 about a London cholera epidemic in the 1850s. This paragraph really brings home the fact there were fake news types way back then, too, trying to cure cholera with chorine and fresh air. I have to give those people back then a little break because we didn’t even have the science to see the cholera virus under a microscope - unlike today when we can figure out a vaccine within six months of a pandemic breakout but some people are still advocating superstition and anecdotal remedies. So, yeah, history repeats itself.