Cholera conquered nineteenth century Europe like a new air to a throne. The first outbreaks of the disease appeared to have begun in India which spread smoothly into Britain by trade through Britain’s Indian based empire. Cholera is identified by rapid liquid diarrhea, vomiting, and accelerated dehydration due to depletion of bodily liquids and salts causing blood to coagulate and skin to turn blue. This leads to a fall in blood pressure, otherwise known as the “sinking stage”, which is accompanied by muscle cramping, sunken cheeks and eyes. Eventually internal organs begin to shut down and at this point the host is not only humiliated due to the mutant effect that the disease has on physical appearance but are just as equally as frightened from the life-sucking grasp it has over their body. Victims of Cholera died within hours to a couple days of contracting this water born disease. Hence, the illness was able to swiftly take thousands of lives in Europe due to unsanitary conditions. This triggered an array of responses from the government and medical officials. As well as the way popular reactions influenced the design and implementation of public health policies during the nineteenth century cholera epidemics.
Government responses in Europe varied from nation to nation. Formerly, many governments denied the existence of cholera in order to protect the economy and trade. It was until they could no longer ignore the fact that outbreaks were becoming more intrusive did they acknowledge that something needed to be done.
Until the nineteenth century, cordon sanitaire systems and quarantine were the main disease control methods used to battle epidemics, thus isolation was not contemporary. However, in further response to nineteent...
... middle of paper ...
...policies to take full effect. Sure some of the policies passed are effective in today’s society but the fact that the public questioned the motives of the government and medical physicians made the situation even worse. The public found out the truth about the dissection affair, but if the contamination theory was right, then the government and the medical professionals involved were not legitimate about the well-being of all people like they tried to appear to be.
Works Cited
Michael Stolberg, “Public Health and Popular Resistance: Cholera in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 68, 2 (1994): 254-277. [24 pp.]
Geoffrey Gill, Sean Burrell, and Jody Brown, “Fear and Frustration—the Liverpool Cholera Riots of 1832,” The Lancet 358 (2001): 233-237. [5 pp.]
“Central Board of Health,” The Times, 16 November 1831, p. 2. [1 p.]
The book, The Ghost Map, tells the story of the cholera outbreak that took place in England during the medieval era. During this time, London became popular, causing it to become one of the most populous urban cities in England. However, it suffered from overcrowding, a large lower class, and little health regulations. As a result, living conditions and water supply were not the cleanest, and many died from the disease cholera. Though this epidemic led to many deaths/illnesses during it’s time, it has proven to be helpful and important to public health today. Some public health advancements that have occurred as a result include healthier, cleaner, and longer lives lived.
Before the Black Plague, living in Britain was interesting and positive but, was not always pleasant. It was too crowded and dirty, Britain was disgusting and unsanitary for the citizens for a long period of time, even before the disease spread to Europe (Ibeji n.pag.). Thus, Britain being so dirty, it was easier for this disease to spread. The citizens of Europe had no clue what was coming to disease them. Many people were not ready for the cultural changes of the disease and were shocked the disease even reached their towns.
Through the eyes of Boccaccio, plague in the City of Florence due has formed three basic forms of social groups. First, there were people who believed that "a sober and abstemious mode of living considerably reduced the risk of infection" therefore they lived in isolation from the rest of the people (Boccaccio 7).
The rail market continued to grow and by the 1860’s all major cities within the United States were connected by rail. The main diseases that showed the most virulence during the time were cholera, yellow fever and consumption, now known as tuberculosis. The 9th census mortality data showed that 1 out 7 deaths from disease were caused by tuberculosis and 1 out of 24 disease deaths were resulting from cholera. . Until the 1870s the general consensus of the spread of disease through population was still the primitive idea that it came from the individual and not specifically the pathogen.... ... middle of paper ... ...
By the 1840’s high rates of disease were ascribed to the housing many of New York’s poverty-stricken immigrants lived in. Fear spread that while disease was rooted in the polluted living conditions of New York’s poorer communities, disease could easily spread to the more well off citizens too. Public health officials realized that the city’s soiled streets and polluted sewers were a health risk to all New Yorkers. In the mid-nineteenth century, New York possessed a primitive sewage system. Poorly planned sewers spanned the city, but most citizens’ homes did not connect to these pipes. Instead, most New Yorkers relied on outdoor outhouses and privies. Because of the high levels of unmanaged waste, epidemics of infectious diseases were commonplace in New York. The city battled outbreaks of smallpox, typhoid, malaria, yellow fever, cholera, and tuberculosis. In 1849, a rash of cholera struck the city, killing more than five thousand people. A wave of typhoid in the mid-1860’s resulted in a similar amount of deaths. Port cities and transportation hubs, like New York, were especially prone to outbursts of infectious diseases because of the high volume of travelers that passed through the city. Americans realized that they were contracting and dying from infectious diseases at an alarming rate, but weren’t entirely sure of why or how. (Web, par. 17,
Cholera is a water-borne disease caused by the spreading of toxins throughout the intestines by the Vibrio Cholerae bacterium. Bad hygiene and other unsanitary conditions such as contamination of food and water can result in this unpleasant infection. As stated in the Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine, “contamination starts when a person infected with cholera steps into a community water supply.” Cholera is more common in places with poor cleanliness and insufficient water treatment. These locations include environments consisting of brackish rivers and coastal waters such as an underdeveloped country like Africa. Cholera can affect anyone but is usually targeted at younger ch...
Gottfried, Robert S. The Black Death: Natural and Human Disaster in Medieval Europe. New York:
Mary Lowth, “Plagues, pestilence and pandemics: Deadly diseases and humanity,” Practice Nurse, 16, (2012): 42-46
Imagine a world where there was a great chance of a mother dying right after giving birth to her child. Sounds like a pretty crazy supposition. Unfortunately, not too long ago, that was the world we called home. Nuland’s book discusses the unfortunate tragedies of puerperal fever and the journey the medical field in Europe took to discover a cause and prevention. Hand in hand, Nuland also depicts the life of Ignác Semmelweis, the unknown founder of the aforementioned cause and prevention strategies: washing hands in chloride of lime. The Doctors’ Plague is a worthwhile read based off the information provided, its ability to break new ground, and the credibility of its author and sources.
As the days went by and the number of deaths began to increase, the Board of Health in London began to improve people’s living conditions by creating the indoor restroom, This, however, caused more problems for the people of London, due to the lack of a proper sewage system, “London needed a citywide sewage system that could remove waste products from houses in a reliable and sanitary fashion,...,The problem was one of jurisdiction, not execution,”(Page 117). London didn’t have a place where the sewers could lead off to which keep the disease spreading when people used the restroom. After months of battling the type of disease London was faced with, Mr. Snow convinced the Board of Health to remove the water pump that was on Board Street. By getting rid of this pump, Mr. Snow helped stop major outbreaks from recurring, “The removal of the pump handle was a historical turning point, and not because it marked the end of London’s most explosive epidemic,..., It marks a turning point in the battle between urban man and Vibrio cholera, because for the first time a public institution had made an informed intervention into a cholera outbreak based on a scientifically sound theory of the disease.”(Page 162- 163). This marked the end of the London epidemic and how the world of science
“Flu Studies Point to Isolation for Prevention." Morning Edition 3 Apr. 2007. World History in Context. Web. 9 Mar. 2014.
Ogden, Horace G.. CDC and the Smallpox Crusade. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1987.
This book follows an esteemed doctor and a local clergyman who, together, are the heart of an investigation to solve the mystery of the cholera epidemic. In 1854 London was ravaged by a terrible outbreak of cholera, where within the span of mere weeks over five hundred people in the Soho district died. London, at the time, was a city of around two and a half million people, all crammed into a small area with no system for sewage removal. With overflowing cesspools, improper drainage of all the human and animal waste, and no system for guaranteed clean water, the people of London were in a bad state. They were essentially dumping all of their feces into their drinking water supply, a perfect environment for cholera to thrive.
One lesson to be learned through the sanitary era is that it is remain persistent in the desire for change in public health reform and policy. Realizing that change, particularly when it affects a great number of people, may take time, and will require a great amount of evidence before it is considered just, calls for adjusting to the affected population. In addition, we live in an age where access to most information is not difficult to obtain. In the nineteenth century, Chadwick and Snow could perform studies and suggest changes directly to those in charge with little awareness on the part of the public. Today, many public health policies that are sought to be implemented are made aware to the public, and as such, an opinion is formed soon after a change is encouraged by attempting to encourage a development in public health. In short, the sanitary era can teach present-day public health that what may be seen as an obvious source of preventable disease may not be seen that way to the general public, and keeping in mind to have patience in the attempt to develop new policies and variations in the perceived normal lifestyle of the everyday
This pandemic first appeared in the city-states of Italy and spread across Europe culminating in the deaths of 25,000,000 people. It is now known that the plague originated in China and inner Asia and that one of the reasons it was so devastating was because of the famine that Europe had just started to recover from.It is also now known that the Black Death was the result of the bacteria yerinia pestis, a bacteria that can cause swelling of the lymph glands in the armpits, the groin, and the neck of people infected with the virus. No particular social class station faith or age group escaped the ravages and people became hungry for answers from the Church. This plague was so devastating Europe’s population did not reach its pre-1347 level until the 16th century.