Overview

During the nineteenth century, five cholera pandemics swept through India, Asia, Europe, and North America, infecting huge segments of the population and killing millions of people; a pandemic is defined as an epidemic encompassing a wide geographical area. Millions more would undoubtedly have perished were it not for the work of Doctors John Snow (1813-1858) and Robert Koch (1843-1910), whose research helped isolate the cause of the disease. Their discovery of the link between cholera and poor sanitation practices would forever change public health policies in Europe and North America.

Background

For centuries the deadly cholera disease festered on the Indian subcontinent. As early as 2,500 years ago, Sanskrit writings tell of the spread of an illness similar in symptoms to cholera. In 1503 the explorer Correia reported that 20,000 men in the army of the...