Victorian epidemiology and supernatural folklore

John Netten Radcliffe

1826 – 1884

John Netten Radcliffe was a British epidemiologist and public health inspector who, before his official medical career, authored Fiends, Ghosts, and Sprites (1854), an inquiry into the psychological and cultural roots of belief in supernatural entities. Later celebrated for tracing the 1866 East London cholera outbreak, he represents a rare figure who bridged Victorian scientific medicine and serious engagement with folk demonology.