He suspected that the cholera outbreak in London’s Soho neighborhood, which killed 616 people, was spread through water, not air. At that time, the dominant—and incorrect—miasma theory of disease held ...

Parliament, still holding fast to the theory of the role miasma played in spreading disease, were convinced that something had to be done. An engineer called Joseph Bazalgette was given the task ...

However, before the germ disease theory was developed, most people believed that the plague spread through noxious air, or ...

The Greeks did it first (of course) when Hippocrates used the ‘art of smell’ to diagnose diseases, in a concept known as the ...

A cane helped doctors maintain social distance from their patients, and the mask’s beak was stuffed with flowers, herbs, and ingredients such as viper flesh powder to purify the incoming “miasma,” ...