There's a great book, The Ghost Map, about the London Cholera epidemic in the 1850's. Up until that point people blamed "miasma" as the source of illnesses like cholera. Dr. John Snow did a location based study eventually proving the disease was spreading from a single public water pump. This became the impetus for modernizing London's sewer and water systems. Gave me a big appreciation for the nature of and benefits from modern infrastructure systems.
There's a great book, The Ghost Map, about the London Cholera epidemic in the 1850's. Up until that point people blamed "miasma" as the source of illnesses like cholera. Dr. John Snow did a location based study eventually proving the disease was spreading from a single public water pump. This became the impetus for modernizing London's sewer and water systems. Gave me a big appreciation for the nature of and benefits from modern infrastructure systems.
I've come across that story in statistics classes, a classic example of using data to improve public life.