Cholera After reading NY Cholera http://www.virtualny.cuny.edu/cholera/cholera_intro.html***, read the following account from an immigrant in New York City. Between 1810 and 1840, New York City’s population tripled. Writing in a British periodical in 1845, “A Working Man” described dealing with the unsanitary conditions of city life. On the public pumps in the streets printed placards were pasted with the words “DEATH TO DRINK COLD WATER”; but in spite ofcholera.bmp the warning several deaths occurred from inconsiderate drinking, principally among Irish labourers. Some of the masons who were at work on the great Astor Hotel dropped down dead from the effects of the heat. In consequence of these deaths the builders generally came to the resolution to suspend out-of-doors work every day from the hours of twelve to four, until the weather moderated. The brute creation did not escape; horses fell dead in their harness. The whole effect of these events was very startling to a stranger. The fiercest intensity of the heat, however, seldom lasts for more than three days at a time; it is then succeeded by an appalling thunderstorm, after which the temperature is a shade more bearable for a few days. Millions of flies infest the air, swarm in every room, and settle on every article of food, so as to be truly disgusting. I have seen them congregated in such numbers on the tea-table, that the butter and sugar looked like nothing else than moving masses of blackness, and the noise of their buzzing when a candle is lighted in the evening is altogether insupportable. I underwent a severe attack of bilious fever before being thoroughly acclimated; it laid me by for a week, and eventually yielded to copious bleeding, but left me very weak for some time afterwards. The worst was, however, to come: our little daughter, who had lived through all the trials of the voyage, fell a victim to the disease so fatal to infant life throughout the United States, known as the “summer complaint,” or cholera infantum. For many days our hopes struggled with our fears we prayed that she might recover; but at last, when reduced to the extremity of attenuation, her gentle heart ceased to beat. In the hot season there is but a short interval between die death and the burial: on the evening of our day of bereavement I saw our darling laid in the earth; and owing to the negligence of the grave-digger, was obliged to stand by while he dug the grave: on turning to leave the ground he ran after me, shouting that it was customary to pay cash, and he would write a receipt. Death’s first inroad among a little family becomes a melancholy halting-place in its annals. To our eyes Time had left a footstep visible on his trackless path. A knell of sorrow sounded in our ears, whose echo yet lingers in our hearts. (Source: “A Working Man’s Recollections of America,” Knights Penny Magazine 1 (1846) 97-112) ***** Answer these questions in paragraph form: • What caused cholera? • Where did it originate? • What were some of the measures people took to prevent it? • What were some of the explanations for the disease? Who was blamed? Why? • Why were cities such as New York festering grounds for cholera? • Where do we see cholera problems in today’s world
