We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2014
Snow on cholera
Mathematics is, at least in part, the science of abstraction. Mathematicians look at the rich complexity of the real world and replace it with a simple system which, at best, palely reflects one or two aspects of it. Roads become lines, towns become points, weather becomes a series of numbers (temperature, wind-speed, pressure, …) and human beings become units. The object of the first part of this book is to show how useful such abstraction can be.
In 1818 Europe became aware of a terrifying epidemic raging in parts of India. The disease, previously unknown to European science, struck suddenly, manifesting itself in violent diarrhoea and vomiting followed by agonising muscular cramps. An early description tells how
The eyes surrounded by a dark circle are completely sunk in the sockets, the skin is livid … the surface [of the skin] is now generally covered with cold sweat, the nails are blue, the skin of the hands and feet are corrugated as if they had been long steeped in water.
Often the skin turned blue or black and sometimes the convulsions were so severe that the body was contracted into a ball which could not be straightened out after death. The disease was named ‘Cholera Morbus’ and killed perhaps half its victims.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
