In Chapter 1 of The Ghost Map, Johnson dives into the reality of a city plagued with disease. The chapter explains the jobs of each of the bone-pickers, rag gatherers, purefinders dredgerman, mud larks, sewer hunters, dust men, night soil men, bunters, toshers, and shoremen. I believe that the jobs of these people, were an explanation of the societal classes that were present at the time. I also think that the different classes further explain the mass connectedness of a city during a dark time. Without the help of these scavengers, the city could have possibly been plagued with even worse disease.
When you take a look at the maps given, you can see that the plagues are very wide spread, and they are very hard to control. Especially in times back then with very little technology to control plagues. Nowadays, we are able to control outbreaks with the increased use of technology and medical supplies.
Great introduction – but very thin use of that material to interpret maps – and the Snow map isn’t mentioned at all!!