Henry Whitehead (22 September 1825 – 5 March 1896) was a

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in partic ...

and the assistant curate of St Luke's Church in

Soho Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develo ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, during the 1854 cholera outbreak. A former believer in the

miasma theory of disease The miasma theory (also called the miasmatic theory) is an obsolete medical theory that held that diseases—such as cholera, chlamydia, or the Black Death—were caused by a ''miasma'' (, Ancient Greek for 'pollution'), a noxious form of "bad ...

, Whitehead worked to disprove false theories, but eventually came to prefer John Snow's idea that cholera spreads through water contaminated by human waste. Snow's work — and Whitehead's own investigations — convinced Whitehead that the

Broad Street pump Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develop ...

was the source of the local infections. Whitehead then joined with Snow in tracking the contamination to a

cesspool A cesspit (or cesspool or soak pit in some contexts) is a term with various meanings: it is used to describe either an underground holding tank (sealed at the bottom) or a soak pit (not sealed at the bottom). It can be used for the temporary co ...

that leaked into the water table which led to the outbreak's

index case The index case or patient zero is the first documented patient in a disease epidemic within a population, or the first documented patient included in an epidemiological study. It can also refer to the first case of a condition or syndrome (not n ...

. Whitehead's work with Snow combined demographic study with scientific observation, setting important precedent for the burgeoning science of

epidemiology Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population. It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evide ...

. Whitehead served in several other London parishes before moving to Brampton, now in Cumbria, in 1874, where he was appointed the local vicar. He was instrumental in instigating a movement to build a new church in Brampton, which culminated in Phillip Webb's St. Martin's Church, the only church design of Webb's ever built and now a Grade I listed building. Whitehead moved on to Newlands in Cumberland in 1884, finally becoming vicar of Lanercost for five years until his death.

References

External links

"The Broad Street Pump:An Episode in the Cholera Epidemic of 1854"
The Reverend H. Whitehead in ''Macmillan's Magazine'', Volume XIII, Nov. 1865 - Apr. 1886, pp. 113–122 {{DEFAULTSORT:Whitehead, Henry 1825 births 1896 deaths British epidemiologists People from Brampton, Carlisle 19th-century English Anglican priests Cholera