Heinrich Berghaus's map of human diseases.

The first major atlas ofworldwide thematic maps was completed in 1848, consisting of some 90 maps in two volumes. Created by Heinrich Berghaus at the Geographische Kunstschule in Potsdam, the Physikalischer Atlas (Physical Atlas) reflected the intense interest and activity in mapping a wide range of natural phenomena in the first part of the nineteenth century. The intent of this essay is to contextualize Berghaus's 1848 map of diseases, the earliest world map in an atlas showing the geographical distribution of epidemic and endemic human diseases (Figure 1).1 This world map of human diseases is a well-known landmark in the history of medical cartography, representing both a synthesis of the early period of medical mapping and a source from which popular and increasingly focused epidemiological maps developed.2 In situating the Berghaus disease map in the context of its makers and of the history of thematic cartography, I will argue that the map participated in a major shift in how natural phenomena were studied. This shift in conceptualizing and representing the natural world has been confounded with the notion of "Humboldtian science", and I hope to begin here to put Humboldt, Berghaus, and mid-nineteenth-century medical mapping in a larger perspective.3 In spite of the interest in place, climate, and disease dating back to the Hippocratic era (450-350 BC), the use of geographic maps to enhance the understanding of disease did not emerge until the late eighteenth century, with rapid development by