The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832, 1849, and 1866 2nd Edition

by Charles E. Rosenberg (Author)

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ISBN-13: 978-0226726779

ISBN-10: 0226726770

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Cholera was the classic epidemic disease of the nineteenth century, as the plague had been for the fourteenth. Its defeat was a reflection not only of progress in medical knowledge but of enduring changes in American social thought. Rosenberg has focused his study on New York City, the most highly developed center of this new society. Carefully documented, full of descriptive detail, yet written with an urgent sense of the drama of the epidemic years, this narrative is as absorbing for general audiences as it is for the medical historian. In a new Afterword, Rosenberg discusses changes in historical method and concerns since the original publication of The Cholera Years.

"A major work of interpretation of medical and social thought . . . this volume is also to be commended for its skillful, absorbing presentation of the background and the effects of this dread disease."—I.B. Cohen, New York Times

"The Cholera Years is a masterful analysis of the moral and social interest attached to epidemic disease, providing generally applicable insights into how the connections between social change, changes in knowledge and changes in technical practice may be conceived."—Steven Shapin, Times Literary Supplement

"In a way that is all too rarely done, Rosenberg has skillfully interwoven medical, social, and intellectual history to show how medicine and society interacted and changed during the 19th century. The history of medicine here takes its rightful place in the tapestry of human history."—John B. Blake, Science

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Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of Chicago Press; 2nd edition (July 15, 1987)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 276 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0226726770
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0226726779
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.02 x 5.34 x 0.6 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #532,681 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #149 in History of Medicine (Books)
- #187 in Epidemiology (Books)

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Felicia

Pretty good for a required book

Reviewed in the United States on February 18, 2019

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This book was boring sometimes just by nature of the topic, but it has a good narrative style - it doesn't ramble on needlessly and it shares information in the form of interesting stories. It's also a really good example of historical research. It lays out a clear groundwork in the introduction and then follows it up with tons of primary source research. Not to mention it was one of the first books to use disease to study social history. All in all not bad, probably wouldn't read it for fun personally but it was better than most assigned readings I've had to do - certainly better than any textbook.

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Brian D. Rudert

Cholera amongst us today

Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2006

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Raising my children in Central America when the sixth world cholera pandemic reached the shores of this continent heightened my awareness as to existence of this mysterious disease. My children would bring home their cholera awareness materials from school that emphasized hand washing and clean water. Later on, I researched an incident in 1852 when Ulysses S. Grant and the U.S. 4th Infantry were devastated by cholera when passing through Panama on their way to California. However, it wasn?t until I read Rosenberg?s book that I understood how horrible a death from cholera was and yet how easy it is nowadays to treat. Rosenbery brings out so many interesting aspects of the impact of cholera on public health and the fact that the disease has only been known in the Western world for a little over 200 years. Most people think cholera is biblical. The book is an easy read for a layman and too bad it appears to be mostly used as a text book in college.

26 people found this helpful

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Paul Eckler

Public health proves its value

Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2013

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"The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832, 1849, and 1866," by Charles E. Rosenberg, University of Chicago Press, 1987. This 265-page paperback tells the story of cholera, one of the most deadly diseases of the nineteenth century. Rosenberg's story covers the three major epidemics through the eyes of New York city newspapers.

The symptoms of cholera are characteristic. The patient experiences a sudden onset of violet vomiting, severe cramps, and diarrhea. Patients become dehydrated and often are pale and cold. Many die rapidly often within 24-hrs. The disease is thought to have originated in India. Hence, the name Asian cholera. The epidemics traveled slowly, usually with considerable forewarning. Quarantine was the usual means to delay its spread, but this method usually failed.

Smallpox, the scourge of the eighteenth century had been conquered with vaccination, but cholera posed frightening new challenges. Germ theory would arrive only in the 1850s, and be accepted only in the 1890s. Medical practice was primitive. Bleeding was still a common treatment. Diseases were poorly understood. Hospitals were considered death wards for the poor; nursing an unclean profession.

The cause of cholera was widely debated. Even the idea the disease was contagious was uncertain. Were the victims both exposed to the same cause, or did one catch the disease from the other? The poor living in the slums of the cities were often the victims. This was not a disease of the upper classes, so much so that if one fell to the disease, the cause was "previous indiscretions." Not surprisingly in 1849 in New York, most victims were Irish and Catholic.
Slum dwellers often lacked clean drinking water and relied on privies rather than sewers. Night soil was emptied in the streets which harbored horse manure and rats. Pigs wandered the streets scavenging for food, and providing meat to the poor. Theories suggested miasmas as the cause. Others attributed the disease to God's punishment for unclean living.

The association with city living caused people to flee the cities as cholera arrived. This flood of people tended to spread the disease and violate quarantines. Armed militiamen manned the quarantine lines and stories were told of shots being fired. In New York, informal health committees attempted to deal with the epidemics by setting up cholera hospitals and quarantine areas. But these places were difficult to place as people thought a cholera hospital could not be used for anything else. Riots were also common as citizens protested the presence of cholera hospitals in their area.

Understanding of cholera began to change with the discoveries of John Snow of London. Rosenberg disputes the usual story that Snow proved cholera was due to water from a contaminated well by removing the pump handle. Rather his studies showing the customers of one of two water companies were more often victims was more widely accepted. Germ theory was proposed soon after, but Snow's study proved there was an infectious agent in contaminated water. The use of quarantine implies that people suspected an infectious agent long before, but the debate regarding germ theory then comes down to the identity of that agent.

New York learned from the earlier epidemics and in 1866 passed a law establishing a health agency. They organized for cholera hospitals, quarantine, and to promptly identify cholera cases. Ultimately they succeeded by promptly burning the clothing and bedding of victims and disinfecting the area with chlorinated lime and "coal tar." Coal tar was presumably a source of phenols, which Lister identified as disinfectants (carbolic acid) only in 1867. Antoine-Germain Labarraque discovered the disinfecting properties of chlorinated lime in the 1820s.

It seems ironic that disinfectants were known before the acceptance of germ theory, but the point seems that microorganisms cause certain conditions such as putrification of meat, and could be killed with disinfectants, but the idea that microorganisms cause disease was disputed.

The success of New York's Metropolitan Board of Health in stopping the spread of cholera was widely haled. They were less successful in getting slums cleaned up, and their work did not immediately result in public water systems or sewers, but at least the benefit of a public health agency was established. This is a well documented volume which tells the various aspects of the story in detail. Bibliography. Index.

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Kevin Miller

Excellent

Reviewed in the United States on November 14, 2019

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This item is very good- exactly what I hoped for. Thank you.

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Victoria Moorhread

good read

Reviewed in the United States on March 27, 2021

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Liked the book enjoy anything on history

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Carlos A Linares Koloffon

Excellent condition

Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2019

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The book is in perfect and marvelous condition.

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hooked

Interesting

Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2013

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Love all the details. A very compelling narrative about the development of city sanitation and disease control. It clearly shows the development of cholera from a moral scourge to a plight of an industrialized society not serving all of its citizens equally.

One person found this helpful

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Unimpressed

She didn't like all the context around the disease

Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2017

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Got this for my wife. She didn't like all the context around the disease, religion, government, etc. Mostly stuff that is fairly common knowledge. Only the last few pages are devoted to talking about Cholera and how they dealt with it, which is what she wanted.

2 people found this helpful

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