The cholera epidemic in Russia that started in 1847 lasted until 1851, killing over one million people. In 1851, a ship coming from Cuba carried the disease to
Gran Canaria. It is considered that more than 6,000 people died in the island during summer, out of a population of 58,000. In 1852, cholera spread east to Indonesia, and later was carried to
China and Japan in 1854. The
Philippines were infected in 1858 and
Korea in 1859. In 1859, an outbreak in Bengal contributed to transmission of the disease by travelers and troops to
Iran,
Iraq,
Arabia and Russia. In 1854, an outbreak of cholera in
Chicago took the lives of 5.5 percent of the population (about 3,500 people).
Providence, Rhode Island suffered an outbreak so widespread that for the next thirty years, 1854 was known there as "The Year of Cholera." In 1853–54, London's epidemic claimed 10,739 lives. In
Spain, over 236,000 died of cholera in the
epidemic of 1854–55. The disease reached South America in 1854 and 1855, with victims in Venezuela and Brazil. The events surrounding the cholera pandemic in Bologna in 1855 were described by the city's Sanitation Department or Delegation, published in 1857. The treatise also describes prior plagues afflicting the city.
1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak of cholera cases in the London epidemic of 1854 The
1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak was a severe
outbreak of
cholera that occurred in 1854 near Broad Street (now
Broadwick Street) in the
Soho district of
London,
England, and occurred during the third cholera pandemic. This outbreak, which killed 616 people, is best known for the physician
John Snow's study of its causes and his hypothesis that
germ-contaminated water was the source of
cholera, rather than particles in the air (referred to as "
miasma"). Snow identified the source of an 1854 cholera outbreak as the public water pump on Broad Street (now
Broadwick Street). Although his studies were not entirely conclusive, his advocacy convinced the local council to disable the Broad Street pump by removing its handle. Snow later used a
dot map to illustrate the cluster of cholera cases around the pump, later found to have been dug close to an old cesspit. He used statistics to illustrate the connection between the quality of the water source and cholera cases, and showed that a company was taking water from sewage-polluted sections of the
Thames and delivering it to homes, resulting in an increased incidence of cholera among its customers. Snow's study was a major event in the history of public health and geography. It is regarded as one of the founding events of the science of
epidemiology. This discovery came to influence
public health and the construction of improved
sanitation facilities beginning in the mid-19th century. Later, the term "
focus of infection" would be used to describe sites, such as the Broad Street pump, in which conditions are good for transmission of an infection. John Snow's endeavor to find the cause of the transmission of cholera caused him to unknowingly create a
double-blind experiment. ==See also==