1. Define overdetermination.

Overdetermination is when an action or belief is motivated and caused by
several different psychological factors. For example, the instinctual
repellent from smells, tradition about removing smells, and classist
prejudice compounded to make miasma theory.

2. What is an experimentum crucis?

An experimentum crucis is the experiment that will ultimately prove a
hypothesis, in this case the waterborne theory, and disprove competing
hypotheses.

3. What innovation in information design made John Snow’s map better
than other dot maps tracking the cholera outbreak?

John Snow's map used a Voronoi diagram to diagram the region containing
the points closest, by walking, to the Broad Street pump, where he
expected much higher cholera rates.

4. What medical objects have been important during the COVID-19
pandemic?

Ventilators, masks, and nose swabs have all played important roles
in the pandemic response.

5. How do new inventions, like the ghost map or the hypodermic needle,
change our understanding of health? Hint: I am not asking you to respond
to individual cases. Please think conceptually about how inventions in
general reshape health.

A new medical invention changes how doctors or health officials interact
with medicine or understand disease. Each moves the norms around what is
healthy and what health providers' role is, like anaesthetized surgery
making surgery a more careful practice. New inventions change which
treatments are chosen and modify the social ideal of health by, for
example, making masks part of being healthy or developing consciousness
of water supply cleanliness.

Each new medical invention changes how health officials or doctors
understand and deliver medicine or prevention. 

6. Complete a bibliographic entry for The Ghost Map in MLA format.

Johnson, Steven. The Ghost Map. Riverhead, 2006.

7. Rewrite these sentences with stronger transitions.

"The miasma theory of disease was dominant during the Victorian period.
John Snow's waterborne theory of disease transmission gained credibility
after his death. Germ theory was developed at the end of the century. We
know diseases are transmitted by microbes like viruses or bacteria."

"The miasma theory of disease was dominant during the Victorian period.
A competing idea, John Snow's waterborne theory of disease, was more
accurate but only gained credibility after his death. His theory
preceded germ theory, developed at the end of the century. We now know
germ theory is correct and disease is transmitted by microbes like
viruses or bacteria."

8. What’s wrong with the following sentence? Hint: It’s more than one
thing. Look for stylistic, grammatical, and citation errors as well as
logical holes in the argument.

"Thomas Beddoes argued that health can be shaped and reshaped by the
invention of new devices like the ghost map. On the other hand, Edwin
Chadwick believed that 'all smell was disease.' (Johnson pg. 114). So,
when John Snow made his map, it reshaped health. In conclusion, Beddoes
was right."

The author should be cited as "(Johnson 114)". The "conclusion" isn't
necessary because it repeats that "it reshaped health." The "on the
other hand" is incorrect because Edwin Chadwick's belief doesn't
contradict the previous sentence; "for example" or "specifically" or
nothing at all may be better. 

9. In the 1930s, Broad Street became Broadwick Street. There are two
buildings that remain from the summer of 1854. Name those buildings.

A pub now named The John Snow and the workhouse (now functioning as a
parking garage) still remain.

10. How might Johnson’s arguments about consilient thinking (the ability
to move between scales of experience and disciplines) change your
approach to your medical object video? What rhetorical strategies or
tactics would you employ to demonstrate consilient knowledge of your
object?

In
.ft I
The Ghost Map,
.ft R
Johnson talks about two processes being similar on different scales,
like cholera growth in a city and cholera growth in a small intestine.
This is apparently used by John Snow to overdetermine an argument about
cholera's waterborne nature: the symptoms present in the stomach, the
disease presents in people drinking water from a specific source, and
the water source was contaminated by an index case. In my medical object
video, I will focus more on the commonalities between the domains that
my medical object involves, and I will use the biological explanation as
a common metaphor for the object's uses.