When was cholera first noticed

Emile Durkheim, considered one of the fathers of sociology, used social statistics to do research on suicide in France. Both of these new trends, microbiology and social statistics, converged in when cholera hit London England. An English doctor named John Snow, influenced by the newly emerging microbiology and utilizing social statistics death certificates , traced the spread of cholera in one area of London to the now infamous Broad Street water pump, thereby pointing to sewage-contaminated water as a carrier of something that caused cholera.

The Italian doctor Filippo Pacini was the first to discover the cholera bacteria Vibrio cholerae in when cholera hit Florence, but his discovery was ignored by the Italian medical community which still subscribed to the miasmatic theory of illness.

By this time the western medical establishment was ready to accept the fact that microorganisms did indeed cause illnesses such as cholera. Here in Pohnpei and the neighboring Marshall Islands we recently learned the hard way about the role that microorganisms play in the spread of cholera and the ways in which our individual and social behavior can either spread or prevent it.

We also learned the value of social statistics in determining the origin and progress of the disease. There have since been numerous outbreaks and seven global pandemics of cholera.

Each year, cholera infects 1. Cholera is an infectious disease caused by a bacterium called Vibrio cholerae. The bacteria typically live in waters that are somewhat salty and warm, such as estuaries and waters along coastal areas.

People contract V. These strains produce the cholera toxin that cause cells lining the intestines to release increased amounts of water, leading to diarrhea and rapid loss of fluids and electrolytes salts. A single diarrhea episode can cause a one-million-fold increase of bacterial numbers in the environment, according to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

And of the people who do develop cholera, 20 percent come down with severe symptoms, which includes severe diarrhea, vomiting, and leg cramps. These symptoms can cause dehydration, septic shock and even death within a matter of just a few hours.

People who contract non or non V. Today, cholera is treated through fluid replacement and antibiotics. Early texts from India by Sushruta Samhita in the 5th century B. One of the first detailed accounts of a cholera epidemic comes from Gaspar Correa—Portuguese historian and author of Legendary India—who described an outbreak in the spring of of a disease in the Ganges Delta, which is located in the south Asia area of Bangladesh and India.

Numerous reports of cholera manifestations along the West coast of India by Portuguese, Dutch, French and British observers followed throughout the next few centuries. The first cholera pandemic emerged out of the Ganges Delta with an outbreak in Jessore, India, in , stemming from contaminated rice.

The disease quickly spread throughout most of India, modern-day Myanmar, and modern-day Sri Lanka by traveling along trade routes established by Europeans. By , cholera had spread to Thailand, Indonesia killing , people on the island of Java alone and the Philippines. From Thailand and Indonesia, the disease made its way to China in and Japan in by way of infected people on ships.

It also spread beyond Asia. The disease eventually made its way to European territory, reaching modern-day Turkey, Syria and Southern Russia. The pandemic died out 6 years after it began, likely thanks to a severe winter in —, which may have killed the bacteria living in water supplies. Like the one that came before it, the second pandemic is thought to have originated in India and spread along trade and military routes to Eastern and Central Asia and the Middle East.

By autumn of , cholera had made it to Moscow. The spread of the disease temporarily slowed during the winter, but picked up again in spring of , reaching Finland and Poland. It then passed into Hungary and Germany. The disease subsequently spread throughout Europe, including reaching Great Britain for the first time via the port of Sunderland in late and London in spring of Britain enacted several actions to help curb the spread of the disease, including implementing quarantines and establishing local boards of health.

But the public became gripped with widespread fear of the disease and distrust of authority figures, most of all doctors.

In , cholera had also made it to the Americas. In June of that year, Quebec saw 1, deaths from the disease, which quickly spread along the St. Lawrence River and its tributaries.

Around the same time, cholera imported into the United States, appearing in New York and Philadelphia. Cholera was localized in Asia until , when a first pandemic spread from India to several other regions of the world.

After this appearance, six additional major pandemics occurred during the 19th and 20th centuries, the latest of which originated in Indonesia in the s and is still ongoing. In , a cholera outbreak in Soho, London, was investigated by the English physician John Snow to