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MONSTER SOUP: CHOLERA
• The classic symptom of Asiatic cholera is watery diarrhea leading to rapid dehydration. It occurs when someone carrying the bacteria Vibrio cholerae poops in your water supply.
• There were six worldwide cholera epidemics from 1817 to 1923. Though you don’t hear much about it, we are now in the midst of a seventh epidemic, which began in 1961 and kills over 100,000 people every year.
• One of most well-known episodes in the history of epidemics occurred at a famous water pump in London. When a radical doctor plotted the cases of cholera on a map, he found they clustered around a pump on Broad Street. Desperate officials removed the pump’s handle, stemming the deaths.
• The man who drew that map, Dr. John Snow, is called the father of modern epidemiology. Even though germs would not be discovered for several decades, Snow was able pinpoint the bacteria using statistics. You can have a pint at an original pub, now called The John Snow, across from the pump.
Learn more about cholera, including a look on the bright side…
• During one of the London outbreaks, the water in the Thames River got so bad that an 1828 cartoon dubbed it “monster soup” full of “hydras, and gorgons, and chimeras dire.”
• The bright side: Huge improvements in sanitation. Thanks to cholera, our yards no longer feature open cesspools.
• Some scientists speculate that cholera may be one of nature’s way of controlling the population in growing areas. It’s as if, whenever our rivers become too slow, brackish, and full of sewage, as the Thames was then, cholera comes along to thin our ranks and force us to clean up the mess.
• Cholera recently broke out in Iraq, with over 30,000 people reportedly affected.
Coming tomorrow: Yellow Fever. Now go bone up on syphilis and plague.
Comments (7)
Comment
When one of the hospitals in Boston (I forget which one)was built, it was plagued with infections; turns out it was built on a mass grave for cholera victims from decades before.
posted by Andrew on 10-3-2007 at 1:42 pm
I wonder how many people eat at the pub named after the father of modern epidemiology without knowing it. Also, “bone up on syphilis?” Seriously? Might be a good t-shirt.
posted by Roger on 10-3-2007 at 2:14 pm
I think you misquoted your statistic about the annual number of deaths from cholera. Although deaths are thought to be under-reported, the number of deaths reported to WHO (in recent years) is in the 2,000-20,000 range. The total number of cases (not deaths) is over 100,000.
www.worldwater.org/data20062007/Table14.pdf
posted by HeyBeckyJ on 10-3-2007 at 2:43 pm
so i guess the moral of this story is to boil anything suspect and wash wash wash? lol
i do hope they are telling travellers that are going to cholera infected regions that they are going to encounter somethign unpleasant.
but a cholera vaccine? who’d have thunk? i’m almost thinking about goign and getting it just in case! lol
posted by Sue on 10-3-2007 at 8:54 pm
Between cholera, hepatitus, and a host of other evils, the mind boggles at how many lives could be saved by dependable supplies of clean water worldwide.
posted by Miss Cellania on 10-4-2007 at 11:18 am
The pump was actually removed years ago. There is a replica somewhere on the street, but not in the original location - I assume that’s the pump that the ‘John Snow’ is across from. There is a brick in the walk somewhere that marks the original location of the pump - I don’t remember whether it’s near the pub though…
posted by Carpus on 10-4-2007 at 6:44 pm
Becky is right–I transposed the figures on cholera CASES and cholera DEATHS. Wish I could say this was because I was reading the study in its original French.
Also, Carpus is correct that the John Snow pub is near the site of the famous pump, not the pump itself, which thank heavens is long gone. Happily, Londoners no longer have to pump their water themselves.
Thanks for the corrections. Can’t slip anything past you all.
posted by Chris Weber on 10-5-2007 at 7:32 am