Gallons of Prevention: Worth 300 Milligrams of Cure

Gallons of Prevention
Worth 300 Milligrams of Cure

Good health is one of the characteristics of the modern world. While much of our better health and longer lives are due to antibiotics and other medicines, this reading shows students the importance of basic sanitation in achieving and maintaining the healthy lives to which we've become accumstomed over the past century.

In addition to showing the role of this very basic technology in everyday life, the reading also demonstrates the scientific process in action through the work of English physician John Snow. While he hypothesized that cholera was spread though contaminated drinking water, he could not scientifically make such a claim until he had made obsevations and gathered evidence. The 1854 Soho cholera outbreak gave him the opportunity to do just that. His careful collection of information resulted in overwhelming evidence that the cholera outbreak had been caused by bad drinking water. The evidence consisted of two facts. First, nearly everyone afflicted had drunk from a single well. Second, those who didn't drink from the well rarely got sick, no matter how close they lived and worked to their diseased neighbors. This evidence established Snow's hypothesis as the accepted theory of cholera transimission.
Relevant National Science Education Standards

Unifying Concepts and Processes — The reading deals with Snow's model for the transimission of cholera and the evidence that supported it. It also deals with the ecosystem of humans and their drinking water supply.
Science as Inquiry — The reading recounts a story of scientific inquiry carried out by John Snow during the 1854 Soho cholera outbreak.
Life Science — The reading deals with the behavior of V. cholerae and its interaction with humans.
Earth and Space Science — The reading deals with some unpleasant consequences of the water cycle.
Science and Technology — The reading discusses the technologies used to treat drinking water, namely ozone and chlorine treatment.
Science and Personal and Social Perpectives — The reading tells about a scientific puzzle whose answer had important ramifications for personal and community health.
History and Nature of Science — The reading gives a historical perspective illustrating the nature of scientific knowledge and science as a human endeavor though the recounting of John Snow's study of cholera.

Relevant New Jersey State Science Education Standards

5.1 The reading tells a story of how formulating usable questions and hypotheses, conducting systematic observations, interpreting and analyzing data, and drawing conclusions, led to the unraveling of a basic scientific puzzle.

5.2 The reading shows how a scientific breakthrough helped us control waterborne diseases.

5.4 The reading shows how the modern practices of water and sewage treatment arose from the science of John Snow concerning cholera transmission.

5.5 The reading deals with one particularly unpleasant living organism, V. cholerae.

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5.1	The reading tells a story of how formulating usable questions and hypotheses, conducting systematic observations, interpreting and analyzing data, and drawing conclusions, led to the unraveling of a basic scientific puzzle.
5.2	The reading shows how a scientific breakthrough helped us control waterborne diseases.
5.4	The reading shows how the modern practices of water and sewage treatment arose from the science of John Snow concerning cholera transmission.
5.5	*The reading deals with one particularly unpleasant living organism, V. cholerae.*