NOTES ON THE CHOLERA SEASONS OF 1832-4. 17 



NOTES ON THE CHOLERA SEASONS OF 1832 AND 1834. 



BY REV. C. DADE, M.A. 



The following paper contains the results of personal observations 

 taken during the Cholera Seasons of 1832 and 1834, in the City of 

 Toronto. The subject does not involve medical considerations, but is 

 considered as bearing \ipon the connection between atmospheric condi- 

 tions and aesthetic phenomena. During the period above alluded to I 

 kept a careful record of the weather and its prevailing features, the 

 observations being mainly thermometric. 



The year 1832 must ever be considered as a most memorable one in 

 the annals of Canada, and it was fraught with lamentation, and mourn- 

 ing, and woe. We were visited with domestic discord and foreign 

 invasion. In both, blood was freely poured forth ; but what comparison 

 is there between the victims of the sword and of that fell destroyer, 

 which spared neither age nor sex, and against whose desolating attacks 

 vain was the help of man. The appearance of the cholera on the 

 American continent was an event which inspired not only universal 

 dread but almost universal curiosity. "We had traced it in its course 

 from east to west, resembling in this all other pestilences of modern 

 and ancient times, and there seemed but little doubt that in its onward 

 career it would reach the shores of the far western world. There 

 .seemed to be a fairer opportunity of determining the nature and 

 origin of the disease than at any previous period, and thus with varied 

 feelings of awe and expectation men awaited the arrival of the terrible 

 visitant. Rumours and surmises were soon converted into certainty, 

 for on June 8th, 1832, the first case of cholera occurred in Quebec, 

 To use the expressive language of the poet, 



" Like a thunder peal, 

 One morn a rumour turned the cify pale. 

 And stpriiig on eaoh other, fearful nieu 

 Uttered with faltering voice, one word— the Plague !" 



The first subjects were emigrants, and were exposed to no other 

 source of infection than the filthy state of their lodgings in that focus 

 of abominations, the Lower Town of Quebec, stated by the board of 

 Health to be a "low, dirty, ill-ventilated part of the City, crowded 

 with emigrants of the lowest description." The pestilence having thus 



Vol. VII. B 



