[geenew]

It's pedantic to say, but, based on what they said, their original was not incorrect, simply less exhaustive than it could have been. It could (and, seems to) be that the fellow's work on anaesthetics was seen as more important than his work on cholera. Given the (often overlooked) importance of modern anaesthetics, I can easily believe this.

[arp242]

"Barrack Obama passed away on Jan 20th; Obama was a senator from Illinois and the author of several best-selling books" is also correct. At some point an omission is so glaring that it becomes egregious.

That said, I believe the significance of Snow's 1854 findings were not yet widely appreciated in 1858, and in this case the omission in the original obituary seems understandable and reasonable.

[throw0101c]

> It could (and, seems to) be that the fellow's work on anaesthetics was seen as more important than his work on cholera.

His work on cholera was completely ignored for years and he gave up on trying to convince people about Germ Theory and went back to anaesthetics.

[TedDoesntTalk]

Yet they were precise enough to mention that he died at 12:16 PM.

[joewalker_]

I believe in this case that the reference to "noon, on the 16th instant" is referring to the 16th day of the month, not the minute after 12:00 - so, he died at noon on June 16. Encyclopaedia Britannica lists his date of death as 16/06/1858 (https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Snow-British-physi...)

"Instant" means the current month, "ultimo" refers to the previous month and "proximo" the next (https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority...).

[thaumasiotes]

Being minute-level precise about quantities that can't be known to the minute isn't exactly something to point to to suggest that their other coverage was uncharacteristically sloppy.