cholera

cholera, a disease spread via contaminated water or food, had been endemic in Bengal for centuries; it reached Europe in the 1820s due to improved transport and communication. Ireland experienced four major cholera epidemics: in 1832–3, 1848–50, 1853–4, and 1866–7. In the early 1830s cities and towns, many of which had poor water and sewage facilities, were most seriously affected. But the worst epidemic occurred during the Great Famine, when a population already weakened by starvation and fever rapidly succumbed to this new disease. While around 25,000 died from cholera in 1832–3, perhaps as many as 35,000 died in 1848–50. Irish emigrants were also blamed for spreading cholera in both Britain and the United States.

Contagion (person‐to‐person) theories vied with miasma (airborne) theories to explain the spread of the disease and it was not until the work of John Snow in the 1850s and Robert Koch in the 1880s that the true mechanisms of dissemination were identified. This led to sanitary reforms which effectively eliminated cholera as a serious medical threat in Ireland before 1900.

Elizabeth Malcolm