Second cholera pandemic (1829-1851)
The second cholera pandemic (1829-1849), also known as the Asiatic Cholera Pandemic, was a cholera pandemic that reached from India to Europe, Great Britain and the Americas.[1]
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History [edit]
This pandemic began, like the first, with outbreaks along the Ganges River delta in India. From there the disease spread along trade routes to cover most of India. By 1828 the disease had traveled to China and reached the southern tips of the Ural Mountains in 1829. It reached England in December 1831: appearing in Sunderland, Gateshead and Newcastle. In London, the disease claimed 6,536 victims; in Paris, 20,000 died (out of a population of 650,000), with about 100,000 deaths in all of France.[2] In 1832 the epidemic reached Russia (see Cholera Riots), Quebec, Ontario, Detroit and New York. It reached the Pacific coast of North America between 1832 and 1834.[1]
Legacy [edit]
Norwegian Poet Henrik Wergeland wrote a stage-play inspired by the pandemic, which had reached Norway. In The Indian Cholera, he criticized British colonialism for spreading the pandemic.
As a result of the epidemic, the medical community developed a major advance, the intravenous saline drip. It was developed from the work of Dr Thomas Latta of Leith, near Edinburgh. Latta established from blood studies that a saline drip greatly improved the condition of patients and saved many lives by preventing dehydration. But, he was one of the many medical personnel who died in the epidemic.
See also [edit]
References [edit]
- ^ a b "Cholera's seven pandemics". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. December 2, 2008. Retrieved 2008-12-11. Unknown parameter
|note=ignored (help) - ^ Charles E. Rosenberg (1987). The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832, 1849, and 1866. University of Chicago Press.
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