History of the cholera in Manchester, in 1849 : as reported to the Registrar General of Births, Deaths, &c. / by John Leigh and Ner Gardiner.
- Leigh, John, MRCS.
- Date:
- 1850
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: History of the cholera in Manchester, in 1849 : as reported to the Registrar General of Births, Deaths, &c. / by John Leigh and Ner Gardiner. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![One class attributes Cholera to a want of electricity in the atmos- phere ; and a periodical, professing to be scientific, gravely advises its readers to w^ear gutta percha soles, and insulate their beds with glass bottles. Another finds it in the deficiency of ozone, a substance which has never been isolated, and whose function in nature is en- tirely unknown. A third discovers it in the turbid streams and noi- some drains of our crowded cities, whilst the hardy tenant of the far off mountain sinks beneath its fatal breath. In the passing year, we have seen the bosom of Europe heave with convulsive struggles; men have rushed madly together in poli- tical strife ; cities have rung with the din of arms ; and the dead and the dying have polluted their streets and covered their pavements with gore; whilst the fair fields of Hungary have been watered by the blood of her sons and their foes. But, though thousands have perished, and the widow and fatherless mourn o'er the departed and lament the blood so vainly shed, yet are all these as nothing before the numbers that have fallen by the fell breath of the destroying Spirit of the East, Regardless of age or sex, unchecked by nation or clime, it visited alike the mansion of the wealthy and proud, and the cottage of the lowly and meek. On its first invasion, in 1832, the public mind of Europe was roused to an agony of alarm ; analogues to its efiects were eagerly sought, and caught at, in the vain hope that a conception of its true remedy would follow; and when, at last, exhausted by its own efforts, or having swept off all susceptible of its terrible influ- ence, it left our shores, the minds of men, in calmer mood, traced its course, ascertained where it fell with most deadly effect, and what were the peculiarities in the sites or the people which seemed to foster its stay or invite its progress. Whatever sunk and enervated the frame, whatever depressed the vital powers, impure air, impure water, deficiency or innutriciency of food, the thousand evils that surround the hapless poor, intem- perance, loss of rest, &;c. — all these seemed to prepare victims ready for its coming. It passed from among us. The young and ardent feared no return ; the grave and matured in years prc])ared for the contingency, by suggesting alterations and improvements in our sani- tary arrangements to mitigate its virulence, which the apathy of the age refused to adopt. Years rolled by, and, lulled in fatal security, it was fondly hoped the pestilence had left our clime to return no more — for ever. At length a voice went forth that the dread spirit had left its haunts on the Ganges and the Jumna, and quitted the pestilential marshes of the Sunderbund, and was stalking westwards. Alike the hardy and sinewy Tartar on his desert steppes, and the soft and effeminate Persian sunk before it. It accom))anied the mariner to distant shores, and found a home in every land, and Britain again mourns under its fearful visitation.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22272148_0008.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
