Icarus

“They mistook the smoke for the fire.”
― Steven Johnson, The Ghost Map

“The observers of the time were detecting a phenomenon that we now largely take for granted: that "mass" behavior can often diverge strikingly from the desires of the individuals that make up the mass.”
― Steven Johnson, The Ghost Map

“The timing of Thomas Lewis’ illness suggests one chilling alternative history. The Broad Street outbreak had subsided in part because the only viable route between the well and the neighborhood’s small intestines had run through the cesspool at 40 Broad. When baby Lewis died, the connection had died with it. But when her husband fell ill, Sarah Lewis began emptying the buckets of soiled water in the cesspool all over again. If Snow had not persuaded the Board of Governors to remove the handle when he did, the disease might have torn through the neighborhood all over again, the well water restocked with a fresh supply of V. cholerae. And so Snow’s intervention did not just help bring the outbreak to a close. It also prevented a second attack.”
― Steven Johnson, The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World

“Superstition, then and now, is not just a threat to the truth. It’s also a threat to national security.”
― Steven Johnson, The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World