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

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

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 deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...

and the assistant

curate A curate () is a person who is invested with the ''care'' or ''cure'' () of souls of a parish. In this sense, ''curate'' means a parish priest; but in English-speaking countries the term ''curate'' is commonly used to describe clergy who are as ...

of St Luke's Church in

Soho SoHo, short for "South of Houston Street, Houston Street", is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, art installations such as The Wall ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

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

miasma theory of disease The miasma theory (also called the miasmic theory) is an Superseded scientific theories#Medicine, abandoned medical theory that held that diseases—such as cholera, Chlamydia infection, chlamydia, or Plague (disease), plague—were caused by a ...

, 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, short for "South of Houston Street", is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, art installations such as The Wall (SoHo), and ha ...

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

cesspool Cesspit, cesspool and soak pit in some contexts are terms with various meanings: they are used to describe either an underground holding tank (sealed at the bottom) or a soak pit (not sealed at the bottom). A cesspit can be used for the tempo ...

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 (no ...

. Whitehead identified a "Baby Lewis" at 40 Broad Street where a leakage in the basement contaminated the well as patient zero of the outbreak. Whitehead's work with Snow combined

demographic Demography () is the statistics, statistical study of human populations: their size, composition (e.g., ethnic group, age), and how they change through the interplay of fertility (births), mortality (deaths), and migration. Demographic analy ...

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 Risk factor (epidemiology), determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population, and application of this knowledge to prevent dise ...

. 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 Cumberland ( ) is an area of North West England which was historically a county. The county was bordered by Northumberland to the north-east, County Durham to the east, Westmorland to the south-east, Lancashire to the south, and the Scottish ...

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