Cholera and great wars with people

Khanh An (General)

* Of the seven attacks of the cholera epidemic over the past 200 years, there have been six events in the 19th century.

* Particularly the cholera epidemic attacked England in 1848-1849, causing 70,000 deaths.

In 7 times of " heroic " with cholera in the past 2 centuries, the adjective when cholera was first recorded (1817), the victory always belongs to humans. But the price to pay for victory is tens of millions of lives.

' Love of the left-wing time ', Garcia Marquez's famous work is the most wonderful love story in human history. In the end, the couple returned to live together after 50 years of separation. For peace, they live on a ship with yellow flags, signs of people suffering from cholera. Perhaps it is the only romantic image of the cholera epidemic recorded, while the horrifying memories of the catastrophes they cause always hurt us when we remember them.

' Bombardments '

John Snow - the first to find a link between cholera and water. (Photo: Joyceimages)

In the seven attacks of cholera in the past 200 years, up to six occurred in the 19th century. It is believed that cholera appeared in Asia from 600 BC. Cholera was first recorded in literature in 1563 in India. The first 'great battle' of cholera with humans in 1817-1821 broke out in this place.

The cholera epidemic spreads along trade routes into Russia, followed by Europe and North America. It became the first global disease of humanity, raging everywhere except for Antarctica.

Compared to the bubonic plague in Europe in the 17th century, it killed 137 million people, but cholera did not cause great consequences, but it was no less horrifying.

At that time, doctors did not know the mechanism of cholera. They only know that the initial symptoms are vomiting, hemorrhage, high fever, cold feeling because the pulse is very weak, and death very quickly. The disease is named Asian cholera, or cholera. Doctors often treat with opium alcohol, brandy, extract blood but most fail, so the death toll is very high.

Particularly, the cholera attack on England in 1848-1849 killed 70,000 people. The pandemic in 1854 claimed one-eighth of London's population in a short time.

Also during this period, France suffered heavy losses. In 1832, nearly 40,000 Parisians had cholera and half of them died. Even the victims have the prime minister. In 1848-1849, a similar number of people died from the disease.

At that time the city of London had 2.5 million people. The city has 200,000 toilets, people have the habit of pouring waste water from the floor down and throwing garbage into the street. These wastes drifted along the water stream and eventually flowed into the Thames (at that time, rivers were considered a system containing waste) so the river was seriously polluted.

Explorers

Firstly, it is thought that the epidemic is transmitted through the respiratory tract, so when there is a pandemic, there are big migrations. But that made the disease spread quickly.

In 1849, a doctor named John Snow made a groundbreaking remark: The cholera epidemic spread quickly according to water sources. Nobody noticed his theory then. He was attacked by the city's water companies and operators because it affected their business.

The cholera translation in 1892 in Hamburg.(Photos; Wikimedia)

In the pandemic in 1854, Snow quietly conducted investigations to confirm his hypothesis. He made statistics to locate fatal cases. For example, in the Cambridge and Broad streets, where the same water is used, the number of deaths is up to 500 people in just over a week. He demanded the removal of the water pump at the water source, and the number of deaths in this area decreased rapidly. At that time, two companies were taking water from the River Thames to supply the city, one upstream, one downstream. Snow found that the cholera was raging heavily in customers who drank water from the downstream as a source of heavily polluted water due to city waste.

Through John Snow's recommendations, in 1852, the Water Act was introduced, requiring all water supply companies to filter the water before selling it to customers. The city's sewer system is designed to open to the sea. Thus, the environment of the Thames River is improved. The cholera outbreaks were pushed back.

Similarly in France, then Paris was a shanty town, houses of temporary corruption. The water system is very poorly sanitary. The main source of water for the Parisian people is taken from the Seine, which is where most of the sewers pour out. The consequence of this unhygienic condition is the massive cholera epidemic. Realizing this, King Napoleon III made a major plan to reform Paris. Paris had built the most modern sewerage system at that time, erasing the marshy areas causing cholera, improving the water source and living environment for everyone.

Bacteria carry commas

It was not until 1883 that the face of ' killer ' was known by Robert Koch's research work. Robert Koch Hermann Robert Koch (1843-1910) is a German doctor. He was the one who found bacilli bacilli, tubercle bacilli and cholera bacteria (1883). Earlier (1854) Italian scientist Pacini mentioned vibrio chorelae cholera bacteria when cholera attacked Florence.

Robert Koch - Dr. Robert Koch's doctor finds the bacillus bacillus, tubercle bacilli and cholera bacteria (1883) - (Photo: answers.com)

In 1883 Robert Koch was sent to Egypt as Chairman of the German Cholera Committee, to investigate the cholera outbreak there. He discovered vibrio chorela is the cause of cholera, and he also studied cholera bacteria in India. He systematized the principle to control cholera (1893) and it became the foundation for today's cholera control.

It is well known that the comma-shaped bacteria causes the most common catastrophe in the stool of patients, in waste water containing feces. In addition, if not cooked fish, other food from contaminated water is also a source of disease.

It was the fierce raging of the 19th century cholera that led to a series of world-class sanitation conferences held in Europe on coordinating policies and implementing medical quarantine management. The League of Nations established the Health Organization in 1920, which could be considered a precursor to the World Health Organization (WHO) later.

The most recent cholera pandemic recorded in 1991 in Peru has forced the country to declare a state of emergency, yet it spread rapidly to the Central-South American countries, causing nearly half a million people to be infected. , including more than 10,000 deaths.

Currently, along with the development of air, road, and sea traffic in an increasingly seamless modern world, and moreover, the rich-poor separation between countries is an opportunity for translation. described opening new attack. However, scientific development, a sense of community changes, in addition to the closer integration between nations has made cholera unbreakable as before.