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""Snow, Empson and the Barkers of Bath,""

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(March 2001)Anæsthesia 56 (March 2001): 227-30

PDF posted with permission of the author.

"Summary.

The identity of the artist who painted the well-known portrait of John Snow has been established. It has been discovered that the painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts, London in 1847."

[From the opening paragraph]

"In addition to the well-known photograph of John Snow at the age of 44, taken in 1857, the year before his death, there exists an earlier portrait in oils (Fig. 1), the property of Dr. R. G. Snow. A modern copy of this portrait hangs in the Royal College of Anaesthetists. . . ."

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Detail from the portrait of Snow, the origin of which is discussed in this article.

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The often reproduced and "well-known photograph of John Snow at the age of 44, taken in 1857 . . . ."

Zuck wrote that "while plotting the extent of John Snow's general practice by marking the non-anaesthetic visits noted in his Case Books on a [bus] map of North London, it was noticed that there were quite frequent attendances at three of four outlying addresses about a mile from the compact nucleus of his practice in Soho. This seemed strange" [227].

Zuck eventually found nearly 100 visits to three addresses where T. J. Barker and family had resided during the ten-year period covered by these Case Books (the only ones extant). The three addresses are highlighted in gray on the map below.

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[Personal note: David Zuck sent me this modified bus map (minus #8, Stanhope Street) in July 2000. The version he sent was at a preliminary stage of his plotting, and at the time it was simply intended to inform the rest of the team writing the Snow biography that Snow's general practice had extended beyond Soho. Zuck connected T. J. Barker to some of these outlying addresses later.

At his request, I have highlighted the original two Barker addresses on Zuck's map and added the third which he found at a later stage; PVJ]

See also Zuck's essay on Charles Empson.


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