The Pumphandle Lecture, established in 1993, is an annual lecture held around September to celebrate the removal of the Broad Street pump handle that took place in September 1854 during the cholera epidemic in Soho. It is organised by the John Snow Society, named for John Snow, and takes place at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Pumphandle Lecture
Broad Street pump and John Snow pub
Founder(s)Paul Fine
Established1993
OwnerJohn Snow Society
Location,
London
,
UK

Following the lecture the speaker performs a ceremonial removal and replacement of the pump handle and members proceed to the John Snow pub.[1][2][3]

History

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The Pumphandle Lecture was established in 1993 by the John Snow Society, named for John Snow, to celebrate the removal of the Broad Street pump handle that took place in September 1854 during the cholera epidemic in Soho.[1] It is held every year around September.[4]

The inaugural lecture was delivered by Nick Ward and chaired by Paul Fine.[1]

Lectures

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List of speakers
Year Image Speaker Nationality Title Notes
1993 Nick Ward   United Kingdom "Global Polio Eradication – a call for action" [1]
1994 Spence Galbraith   United Kingdom "Dr John Snow – Early Life and Later Triumphs" [5]
1995 Sandy Cairncross   United Kingdom "Turning the Worm – The Guinea Worm eradication programme" [6]
1996   Richard Feachem   United Kingdom

  United States

"Would John Snow have joined the world bank?" [7]
1997 Hugh Pennington   United Kingdom "E. coli in Scotland – the relevance of John Snow and William Whewell’s consilience of induction" [8]
1998   Richard J. Evans   United Kingdom "Koch, Pettenkofer and the search for the cause of cholera"
1999 Chris Bartlett   United Kingdom "Removing the pump handle at an international level"
2000 John Oxford   United Kingdom "The search for permafrost and other victims of the 1918 Influenza"
2001 David Bradley "John Snow in the world of today"
2002 David Salisbury "Managing vaccine adverse effects"
2003   Mike Ryan   Ireland "Epidemics in the 21st Century, the lesson of SARS"
2004 Alain Moren "Challenges for field epidemiology training in a widening Europe"
2005 Tore Godal "Everything is Impossible until it has been done" [9]
2006 Jamie Bartram   United Kingdom "Drinking Water - Where Science Meets Policy" [10]
2007   Donald Henderson   United States "Polio Eradication, a reconsideration of strategy" [11]
2008 Patrick Wall   Ireland "Food Safety – Media based or Risk Based controls?"
2009 David L. Heymann   United States "When Nature turns cook – The epidemiologist’s feast"
2010   David Nabarro   United Kingdom "Sapiens, Synergy, Solidarite, Success" [12]
2011   Hans Rosling   Sweden "Epidemiology for the Bottom Billion – where there is not even a pump handle to remove!" [13][14]
2012   Tom Frieden   United States "What pump handles need to be removed to save the most lives in this century? [15]
2013 Julie Cliff   Australia "From London to Mozambique, from cholera to konzo" [16]
2014   Jeremy Farrar   United Kingdom "Medicine and public health: divorced for too long" [12]
2015   Atul Gawande   United States "On removing the pumphandle: innovation and implementation"
2016   Paul B. Spiegel   Canada "The Syrian conflict and its effect on the future of humanitarian response: We need a new pumphandle"
2017   Richard Horton   United Kingdom "Life and Death in 2100: Health, History and Human Contingency"
2018   Joanne Liu   Canada "The Cost of Fear: Humanitarian Crises in the Age of Anxiety"
2019   Eliza Manningham-Buller   United Kingdom "Promoting Medical Science in an Age of Scepticism"
2020   John Nkengasong   Cameroon

  United States

"Africa CDC: A New Public Health Order" [12]
2021   Anthony Fauci   United States "COVID-19: Lessons Learned and Remaining Challenges" [12]
2022   Andrew Haines   United Kingdom "The imperative of climate action for health"
2023   Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala   Nigeria

  United States

"Global health equity and the role of trade" [12][17]
2024   Soumya Swaminathan   India “Pandemics, Climate Change and the Role of Science” [18]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d "1993 Dr Nick Ward: Global Polio Eradication – a call for action". The John Snow Society. 9 September 1993. Archived from the original on 26 October 2023. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  2. ^ "Pumphandle lectures Archives". The John Snow Society. 20 October 2023. Retrieved 25 October 2023.
  3. ^ Horton, Richard (February 2022). "Offline: A lie at the heart of public health". The Lancet. 399 (10326): 704. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(22)00312-9. PMID 35183286. S2CID 246906609.
  4. ^ Ramsay, Michael A. E. (January 2006). "John Snow, MD: anaesthetist to the Queen of England and pioneer epidemiologist". Proceedings (Baylor University. Medical Center). 19 (1): 24–28. doi:10.1080/08998280.2006.11928120. ISSN 0899-8280. PMC 1325279. PMID 16424928.
  5. ^ Stanwell-Smith, Rosalind (December 2003). "Cholera, Chloroform, and the Science of Medicine: a Life of John Snow". Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. 96 (12): 612–613. ISSN 0141-0768. PMC 539667.
  6. ^ "1995 Dr Sandy Cairncross: Turning the Worm – The Guinea Worm eradication programme". The John Snow Society. 9 September 1995. Retrieved 28 October 2023.
  7. ^ Communicable Disease Report: CDR weekly. PHLS Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre. 1996. p. 314.
  8. ^ Communicable Disease Report: CDR weekly. PHLS Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre. 1997. p. 286.
  9. ^ Parslow, Graham R. (May 2006). "Websites of note". Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education. 34 (3): 232–234. doi:10.1002/bmb.2006.49403403232. ISSN 1470-8175. PMID 21638683. S2CID 39499985.
  10. ^ "Jamie Bartram (CV)" (PDF). sph.unc.edu. Retrieved 18 November 2023.
  11. ^ "2007 D A Henderson: Polio Eradication, a reconsideration of strategy". The John Snow Society. 9 September 2007. Retrieved 18 August 2024.
  12. ^ a b c d e Okonjo-Iweala, DG. "Global Health Equity and the Role of Trade". www.wto.org. World Trade Organization. Retrieved 18 November 2023.
  13. ^ Schneider, Dona; Lilienfeld, David E.; Lilienfeld, Abraham M. (2015). "Part II. Descriptive studies". Lilienfeld's Foundations of Epidemiology (4th ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 72. ISBN 978-0-19-537767-5.
  14. ^ "Pumphandle Lecture". epimonitor.net. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  15. ^ Cahill, Anne-Taylor (1 January 2018). "Dr. Snow and the Blue Death". Nineteenth Century. 38 (2).
  16. ^ "John Snow Society Pumphandle lecture and AGM 2013". www.rsph.org.uk. Retrieved 27 October 2023.
  17. ^ "Pumphandle Lecture 2023: Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala | LSHTM". www.lshtm.ac.uk. 31 October 2023. Archived from the original on 28 October 2023. Retrieved 28 October 2023.
  18. ^ "2024 Broadsheet now available to read". The John Snow Society. 15 August 2024. Retrieved 19 August 2024.