162 



CHOLERA, ASIATIC. 



due to dirt and overcrowding were most liable 

 to occur. 



On the 8th of June, 1832, the cholera broke 

 out at Quebec, this being its first appearance on 

 this side of the Atlantic. It was supposed to 

 have been introduced in an emigrant ship, many 

 of the passengers of which had died from it dur- 

 ing the voyage. Two days afterwards it ap- 

 peared at Montreal. On the 24th, .New York 

 was unexpectedly attacked the cities and towns 

 along the coast to the north entirely escaping. 

 From New York it extended to Albany, Phila- 

 delphia, Cincinnati, New Orleans, etc. most 

 of the larger towns being visited, but some un- 

 accountably remaining exempt from its ravages. 

 The first case in New York occurred at the 

 corner of Gold and Frankfort Streets. The pa- 

 tient was a native male citizen. Some cases 

 immediately followed in Cherry Street; the 

 subjects were Irish emigrants, who had arrived 

 at Quebec in the autumn of 1831, and had re- 

 sided in Albany till the month of May, 1832, 

 when they had removed to New York. On 

 the 27th, the disease manifested itself at Belle- 

 vue Hospital. The patient was an aged woman 

 who had not been out of the institution for three 

 years, and who had held no communication 

 with the city. Reade, "Washington, and Duane 

 Streets, the Five Points, and the whole region 

 of the Sixth Ward, were visited by the epidemic 

 with fearful violence. Rotten Row, in Laurens, 

 between Grand and Broome Streets, was another 

 deadly centre of the malady. In all these places, 

 as well as in the others where it raged with the 

 greatest intensity, the local and removable con- 

 ditions of general insalubrity were abundant. 



The epidemic reached its height in New York 

 on the 21st of July, from which period it con- 

 tinued to decline. It did not finally disappear 

 from the United States for three or four years. 



So much for the first epidemic of Asiatic 

 cholera. In Great Britain and Ireland over 

 116,000 cases and 40,000 deaths occurred. In 

 the cities of Quebec, Montreal, New York, and 

 Philadelphia, embracing, at that time, about 

 450,000 inhabitants, there were over 18,000 

 cases and 8,000 deaths. 



The sporadic cases which occurred in the 

 United States, and especially in the Western 

 States, as late as 1836 finally ceased entirely, and 

 for twelve years Western Europe and the United 

 States were freed from its scourge. In India, 

 however, it continued to be endemic, and as 

 often as once in three or four years blazed out 

 in a fierce and destructive epidemic. Other of 

 the Asiatic countries were also visited again, 

 and their population decimated by it. At 

 length it again took up its line of march north- 

 ward and westward. Early in 1846 it appeared 

 at Kurrachee, near the mouth of the Indus, 

 where it raged with terrific violence, more than 

 8,000 of its victims dying within a few days. 

 Thence it passed on to Teheran, the capital of 

 Persia, where its severity was such that 300 

 perished daily for several weeks in a popula- 

 tion of not more than 60,000. " Those who 



were attacked dropped down suddenly in a 

 state of lethargy, and at the end of two or three 

 hours expired without any convulsions or vom- 

 iting, but from a complete stagnation of the 

 blood, to which no remedies could restore its 

 circulation." 



Entering Europe almost by the identical 

 route which it traversed on its first visitation, 

 though travelling with much greater rapidity 

 than it did at that time, the cholera ravaged 

 parts of Russia and Turkey during the years 

 1847 and 1848. In the summer of 1848 it 

 seemed to decline in violence, and hopes were 

 entertained that Western Europe would not be 

 visited by it. These hopes, however, proved 

 fallacious. In the autumn of 1848 it appeared 

 in France and Great Britain, revisiting, during 

 the next eight months with almost unerring 

 certainty, every place in which it had appeared 

 in the epidemic of 1832-'33, and seeking out the 

 same filthy lanes and undrained sections of the 

 cities where it had then committed its greatest 

 ravages. Its character was even more malig- 

 nant than in its previous visit. 53,293 persons 

 were carried off by it in England and Wales, 

 without reckoning fatal cases of diarrhoea, most 

 of which were really cholera in its earlier 

 stages. 



On the 9th of November, 1848, the ship 

 New York left Havre for the city of New 

 York, with 385 passengers. There was no 

 cholera either at Havre or Paris when the ves- 

 sel sailed, and the passengers remained healthy 

 till they had been out sixteen days. One of 

 them was then taken ill with a disease resem- 

 bling cholera, another and another case followed, 

 until, when the vessel arrived at Staten Island, 

 on the 4th of December, eight or ten had died, 

 and as many were still suffering from the dis- 

 ease. Cases continued to occur at quarantine 

 among the passengers and the patients of the 

 Marine Hospital. A few days after the ship 

 arrived at quarantine, an individual came from 

 there to the city, and stopped at a German 

 emigrant house on the corner of Cedar and 

 Greenwich Streets. He was attacked with the 

 disease, and being carried back died in a few 

 hours. On the llth of December another 

 case occurred in the same house. This house 

 was excessively filthy, and contained upwards 

 of two hundred lodgers, mostly emigrants. One 

 other case occurred at 161 Washington Street, 

 and then the disease ceased its ravages. In all, 

 there were ninety-two cases and forty-eight 

 deaths. 



But as usual it was only resting from its 

 labors. Duringjthe first week in April, 1849, 

 it reappeared' at quarantine, and by the 30th of 

 May forty-three had died of it. In the city it 

 made its irruption in the most filthy regions 

 and among the lowest of the population. 



Meanwhile it had appeared in New Orleans, 

 and had spread over the greater part of the East- 

 ern and Western States ; the emigrant parties and 

 military expeditions on the prairies suffered se- 

 verely from it ; many tribes of Indians expe- 



