London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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St Giles (Camberwell) 1892

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Camberwell]

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299
APPENDIX.
CAMBERWELL.
MEMORANDUM ON EPIDEMIC OR ASIATIC
CHOLERA, ADDRESSED TO THE
PUBLIC HEALTH COMMITTEE.
Epidemic or Asiatic Cholera has been known in
India for centuries. It is seldom entirely absent there,
but at irregular intervals breaks out into widespread
epidemics. The first Indian outbreak which specially
interests us is that which, originating in the Delta of the
Ganges in the year 1817, soon ravaged the greater part of
Hindostan, and during the next ten or twelve years spread
over nearly the whole of Asia. In 1829 it commenced its
progress through Tartary and Persia into Europe, and in
that year it reached Orenburg. It then became temporarily
arrested, but subsequently took a fresh start; and, still
travelling slowly westwards, it appeared in the spring of
1831 in European Russia and Poland, and in October
invaded Hamburg, Berlin, and Vienna. In the same month
cases were imported into Sunderland, and the disease
remained epidemic in this country for fourteen months. It
spread to other parts of Europe and to America, and did
not finally leave Europe until 1837. Since the epidemic
of 1817, numerous other epidemics have occurred in India,