cholera the biography dec 2009

[...]... at these intimate levels of civil society carried over to the grander level too For the microbe in the bowels of the single person might introduce cholera not only to a village, but, as was repeatedly the case, to a continent More than any other infectious disease, cholera brought the world together The fate of all might be in the bowels of any Or such, we can safely say, was the lesson learned in the. .. well before there was any clear concept of an invasive agent By late in the century cholera had become the exemplar of the new germ theory, which, by defining the disease in terms of its microbe, transformed cholera epidemiology For most of the twentieth century cholera was a laboratory science When truths of laboratory and of field clashed, as they did 7 choler a: the biogr aphy regularly in the development... and lost in these meaning changes”? For we have no business simply presiding over the theft of the old cholera s identity in the name of the manifest destiny of biomedical science That translation of cholera from ours and everyone’s to the Asians’—had profound consequences for relations between nations and between 21 choler a: the biogr aphy peoples The vision of cholera as a scourge from the dirty... to lead poisoning, another colic Some, highlighting the end-stage cardiovascular effects, referred to a cholera asphyxia Others, emphasizing the spasms, linked it to tetanus Pathological theories sometimes underlay this divergence Seeing the key issue as the cause of the spasms and the expulsions from mouth and anus, the eminent Edinburgh systematist William Cullen put cholera in the neuroses.4 (Classical... Burnett’s The Secret Garden (1911) The spoiled child is vexed that her personal servant has not come— her “Ayah” has not only taken the cholera but had the audacity to die of it So, too, have her mother and father The servants had died or fled; the people were dying like flies.” Cholera produced panic; “noise and hurrying about and wailing” frighten Mary Social order breaks down: “when people had the cholera. .. a moist cholera of vomiting and diarrhea But Bossier de Sauvages in the mid eighteenth century identified eleven The so-called cholera sicca (not, probably, the same as the Hippocratic dry cholera) complicated matters It brought neither vomiting nor diarrhea, just quick collapse and death, and would come to be viewed as the deadliest form of cholera Its key symptom was the intense coldness of the limbs... and deadly invader, was neither quick nor unproblematic At first, the similarities had seemed clear enough to warrant using the old term After 1830, cholera (or spasmodic, epidemic, or later “Asiatic” cholera) would refer to the new pandemic disease, leaving cholera morbus or cholera nostras (“our cholera, ” as opposed to a foreign import), for the old disease Even then the distinction was not clear... Juices flowed into the intestines and stomach and were kept from returning by the constriction of the veins In similar manner James accounted for ulceration, inflammation leading to necrosis, and the sympathetic spread of the spasm to all parts of the body: together, the immediate causes of cholera Might we read James’s humors as electrolytes, and see here a primitive account of the cholera toxin? To... of medicine, and together serve as the backdrop of dull stupidity against which the work of the heroes shines forth the more brilliantly Cholera was slower to come under the gaze of professional historians When it did, these were by no means primarily medical historians In the 1960s cholera arose as a social historian’s probe, as a part of efforts to explain class politics in the industrializing world... the poor, it has seemed to indicate societal failure Seeing cholera composite cholera as agent, brings us to biography Cholera has long been personified, but only to demonize Seeking to be Boswell to its Johnson, I shall continue to personify Chapter 1, treating the period leading up to the first pandemic, considers cholera as idea, first as a component of the humoral pathology, then as a scourge of the . ‘ cholera: the biography 2 1. The cholera was known as the ‘blue’ disease. Dehydration caused a sunken, cadaverous countenance and changed the hue of the skin (Wellcome Library, London) The. Notice referring to the “alarming approach of Indian cholera 69 6. A cholera riot 116 7. Celebration at the purging of the cholera atmosphere 116 8. Cholera quarantine 146 9. Cholera as a function. repeatedly the case, to a continent. More than any other infectious disease, cholera brought the world together. The fate of all might be in the bowels of any. Or such, we can safely say, was the