Ohio History Journal

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NOTES ON CHOLERA IN SOUTHWESTERN OHIO

NOTES ON CHOLERA IN SOUTHWESTERN OHIO

 

By DAVID A. TUCKER, JR., M. D.

 

The first invasion of the North American continent by

epidemic, or Asiatic cholera, occurred in 1832. The disease ap-

pears to have been carried across the Atlantic by emigrants from

Ireland who landed during April and May at Gross Isle, thirty-

two miles below the city of Quebec.

Cholera had appeared in a serious epidemic at Jessore, India,

on the Delta of the Ganges in 1816-1817. It had spread slowly

over almost the whole of Asia in the succeeding ten years and

finally reached Europe in 1829-1830, being seen first in the Near

East and in Russia. It passed westward along the river trade

routes of the Danubian Basin and northward to the Baltic areas.

A severe epidemic occurred in Moscow during 1830. It was

found in England during the summer of 1831 on the river front

below London, and aboard vessels recently in from Baltic ports,

and quickly spread over all of England, Scotland and Wales. In

the latter part of the year it reached Ireland from which area it

was carried to America. It is known that the ship Constantia

from Limerick arrived at Gross Isle on April 28, 1832, with 170

emigrants aboard, twenty-nine deaths from cholera having oc-

curred during the voyage. Within the next few weeks a number

of vessels carrying the disease disembarked their passengers. On

June 8 the disease was found at Quebec, and at Montreal a day

later. The explosive nature of the epidemic was due to the com-

bination of intense heat and heavy rains contaminating the water

supplies, and the unsanitary conditions of the receiving stations.

It reached its height in ten days, then slowly declined.

Medical records show that the disease moved along the routes

of travel from Canada to New York State. There is some evi-

dence to indicate that cases had arrived in the port of New York

before or at the same time that they had reached Quebec and

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