Review: The Blue Death by Robert D Morris

WATERBORNE disease kills three children every minute, a grim fact that rarely gets the attention it deserves. This book is a call to take heed, as things are, if anything, getting worse for rich and poor alike. As Morris relates, the deadliest waterborne outbreak in history happened as recently as 1994, in Africa, while the biggest in the US was in 1993. He traces the history of infected water: it nurtured both germ theory and public health, and epidemiology was born when the doctor John Snow noted that a cholera outbreak in London was focused on a water pump. Morris…