Cholera, a virulent, intestinal disease spread by contaminated water, emerged from South Asia in 1830, devastating the cities of Europe as it moved west. By 1832, it appeared in Canada, and, despite efforts to prevent its arrival, the U.S. didn\u2019t have long to wait. Kelton meticulously documents the disease\u2019s spread across the country and the reaction of those whose communities and families were affected. The medical profession hadn\u2019t yet learned the role of microbes in disease\u2014in this case, Vibrio cholerae\u2014and doctors \u201creflexively described patients whom they lost as intemperate, filthy, or derelict in calling for medical assistance in time.\u201d Temperance advocates joined in: \u201cIn almost if not every case Cholera is the result of intemperance, imprudence in eating vegetables, fruits & neglect of diarrhea,\u201d one Baltimore clergyman wrote. Newspapers blamed the Irish, African Americans, and others stuck in impoverished conditions\u2014never noticing their lack of access to clean water. The medical doctrine of the time, based on purging, bleeding, and opium, did little to help the victims. Cholera took an especially high toll among Indigenous people driven west on the Trail of Tears and among enslaved people marched to the Deep South to be sold to cotton planters, in conditions that encouraged the free spread of the disease. Meanwhile, the wealthy fled the cities at the first sign of the plague, mostly to places with good sanitation. While the subject matter is far from cheerful\u2014especially in light of recent experiences with Covid-19\u2014Kelton brings the words and experiences of those who lived through the pandemic to bring the era to life.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cholera, a virulent, intestinal disease spread by contaminated water, emerged from South Asia in 1830, devastating the cities of Europe as it moved west. By 1832, it appeared in Canada, and, despite efforts to prevent its arrival, the U.S. didn\u2019t have long to wait. Kelton meticulously documents the disease\u2019s spread across the country and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7575"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}