Isambard Kingdom Brunel designed the modern field hospital for Florence Nightingale
Isambard Kingdom Brunel & Florence Nightingale
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By Michael Murphy
In the 1850s, London’s Soho neighborhood was a thick layer cake of tenements separated only by narrow footpaths, a prime breeding ground, it turned out, for the 1854 cholera outbreak. One young London doctor,
John Snow, sought a scientific explanation for rampant disease in the newly minted capital of industrial wealth. Instead of emptying the city, as had been done in prior outbreaks, he placed a mark on a map of Soho where each cholera case had emerged. At the largest cluster of markings—a clear nucleus—Snow isolated a water pump where a broken sewer pipe was dumping human waste into the drinking water. He had the handle of the pump removed, and the outbreak in the area declined. Snow’s research proved that cholera was not morally borne; it was waterborne. The roads and alleyways, the buildings built among them, and the pipes laid beneath them—mixing and pooling human waste — enabled the disease to spread. He also proved that biological survival is spatially reliant.
Snow’s simple mapping method is a foundational document in the study of disease and of the design of cities. Cited as a founding father of epidemiology and urban design alike, he demonstrated that poor
(or nonexistent) spatial planning puts public health at grave risk. He also revealed a structural solution that was
(at least empirically) blind to class, linking the working-class neighborhood of Soho and the workers’ health to the health of the public at large. A redesign of piped city substructure, increased zoning and regulatory superstructure, and the decongestion of dense tenement housing in industrial capitals such as London and New York followed in the latter part of the 19th century—all under the rubric of health, sanitation, and hygiene.
These new theories of contagion were circulating among health care professionals in the 1850s, when
Isambard Kingdom Brunel, one of England’s most famous engineers, was tasked with designing a demountable military clinic for Crimea. His design accordingly homed in on the essentials: controlled access to light and fresh air, the separation and removal of waste, and the prevention of overcrowding. Snow’s discovery contributed to a growing body of evidence that challenged miasma theory, but the latter would continue to dominate medical planning for another half-century.
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Samaritan's Purse workers load a field hospital bound for Ukraine.
The world continues to be horrified by images of death and destruction coming out of Ukraine, a catastrophe we have not witnessed in Europe since the Second World War. The needs are desperate and today we airlifted a 30-bed Emergency Field Hospital on our DC-8 cargo plane.
The hospital can serve 100 patients a day and has an ICU, emergency room, pharmacy, and operating theater where we can perform up to 15 surgeries daily. Many civilian deaths and injuries have been reported already, and casualties are expected to increase as the fighting rages.
Members of our Disaster Assistance Response Team
(DART)—including doctors, nurses, and logistics and set-up personnel—are also onboard the DC-8 and will join dozens of our staff already helping some of the more than 1 million refugees who’ve fled the carnage to neighboring countries. We also will send two outpatient health clinics—equipped to treat 200 patients a day—on an additional flight next week, and we are preparing to distribute 20 tons of food inside cities under siege. Throughout this response we will continue to work with our more than 3,200 church partners in Ukraine, many of which were distributing Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes as conflict erupted.
Please pray earnestly for the people of Ukraine and that God will soon bring peace. Now is the time to remember what Jesus told us:
“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
Sincerely,
Franklin Graham
President, Samaritan's Purse
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In 1852, Frederic Edwin Church painted Virginia's Natural Bridge
My Writing on Historical Architecture
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One of Virginia’s most amazing architectural treasures wasn't formed by the hand of man at all.
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THYME Commentary Has a New Home
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Here are links to articles and publications we're reading.
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