MohammadTit at 01:28, 1 November 2025

2025-11-01T01:28:02Z

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{{Short description|Health disaster}}
{{For|the next cholera pandemic|1826–1837 cholera pandemic}}
{{Infobox pandemic
| name = First cholera pandemic
| image = First cholera pandemic-India.PNG
| caption = Spread of the first cholera pandemic in India
| disease = [[Cholera]]
| bacteria_strain = ''[[Vibrio cholerae]]''
| origin = [[Kolkata|Calcutta]], [[Company rule in India|British India]]
| location = South Asia, South-East Asia, Middle East
| dates = 1817–1824
| deaths = 1–2 million in [[Company rule in India|British India]], 200,000 in [[Vietnam]], 100,000 in [[Java]], 100,000 in [[Korea]], 30,000 in [[Bangkok]], 18,000 in [[Basra]], 100,000 in [[Iran]], 750,000-800,000 in [[China]] and [[Japan]]
}}
The '''first cholera pandemic''' (1817–1824), also known as the '''first Asiatic cholera pandemic''' or '''Asiatic cholera''', began near the city of [[Calcutta]] and spread throughout [[South Asia]] and [[Southeast Asia]] to the [[Middle East]], [[Eastern Africa]] and the Mediterranean coast.<ref name="Hays">{{cite book | last= Hays | first= J. N. | title= Epidemics and Pandemics: Their Impacts on Human History |date= 2005 |publisher= [[ABC-CLIO]] | url = https://archive.org/details/epidemicspandemi0000hays | url-access= registration |isbn=1-85109-658-2 | page = [https://archive.org/details/epidemicspandemi0000hays/page/193 193]}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Cholera's seven pandemics |url=http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/cholera-s-seven-pandemics-1.758504|work=[[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation]] |date=December 2, 2008 |access-date= 2008-12-11}}</ref> While [[cholera]] had spread across India many times previously, this outbreak went further; it reached as far as [[Qing dynasty|China]] and the [[Mediterranean Sea]] before subsiding. Millions of people died as a result of this [[pandemic]], including approximately 10,000 troops in British service, which attracted European attention. This was the first of several cholera pandemics to sweep through Asia and Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries. This first pandemic spread over an unprecedented range of territory, affecting almost every country in Asia.

==Origin and initial spread==

The name cholera had been used in previous centuries to describe illnesses involving nausea and vomiting.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Selwyn|first=S|date=May 1977|title=Cholera old and new.|journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine|volume=70|issue=5|pages=301–302|doi=10.1177/003591577707000503|issn=0035-9157|pmc=1543072|pmid=327479}}</ref> Today, cholera specifically describes illness caused by the ''[[Vibrio cholerae]]'' bacteria.<ref name=":2" /> There are numerous examples of epidemics prior to 1817 which are suspected as being cholera.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|last=Echenberg|first=Myron|title=Africa in the Time of Cholera: A History of Pandemics from 1817 to the Present|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2011}}</ref> In the sixth century BCE cholera-like symptoms were described by an Indian text.<ref name=":2" /> Indeed, descriptions of a disease in India from as far back as 2,500 years ago describe an illness reminiscent of cholera.<ref name=":7">{{Cite book|last=Gómez-Diaz|first=Donato|title=Cholera Pandemics, 1816–1861|publisher=Greenwood Press|year=2008}}</ref> Greek physician [[Hippocrates]] wrote about an illness resembling cholera about 2,400 years ago, as did Roman physician [[Galen]] roughly 500 years later in the 2nd century.<ref name=":7" /> In the 16th century, an outbreak of acute diarrhea was reported to have occurred in the [[East Indies]] by the Dutch.<ref name=":2" /> A similar outbreak was recorded in 1669 in China.<ref name=":2" />

But, there is no evidence of "true Asiatic Cholera" prior to 1781, in which the first well-documented epidemic occurred.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /> Having begun in southern India, it would later spread to eastern India and eventually [[Sri Lanka]].<ref name=":2" /> Cholera was endemic to the lower [[Ganges River]].<ref name = "Hays" /> At festival times, pilgrims frequently contracted the disease there and carried it back to other parts of India on their returns, where it would spread, then subside. The first cholera pandemic started similarly, as an outbreak that was suspected to have begun in 1817 in the town of [[Jessore]].<ref>Dhiman Barua, William B. Greenough III, ''Cholera''. p. 6</ref> Some epidemiologists and medical historians have suggested that it spread globally through a Hindu pilgrimage, the [[Kumbh Mela]]'','' on the upper Ganges River.<ref>Susan R. Holman, ''Beholden: Religion, Global Health, and Human Rights''. p. 37</ref> Earlier outbreaks of cholera had occurred near [[Purnia]] in [[Bihar]], but scholars think these were independent events. In 1817, cholera began spreading outside the [[Ganges Delta]]. By September 1817, the disease had reached [[Kolkata|Calcutta]] on the [[Bay of Bengal]] and quickly spread to the rest of the subcontinent. By 1818 the disease broke out in [[Mumbai|Bombay]], on the west coast.

==Spread beyond India==
[[File:First cholera pandemic.PNG|thumb|270px|Distribution of cholera during the first cholera pandemic]]
[[File:First cholera pandemic - Southeast Asia.PNG|thumb|Cholera dissemination across Southeast and eastern Asia 1820–1822]]
After spreading beyond India, the first cholera pandemic hit other parts of Asia and the African coast the hardest.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|last=Echenberg|first=Myron|title=Africa in the Time of Cholera: A History of Pandemics from 1817 to the Present|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2011}}</ref> It would not be until later epidemics of cholera that it would ravage Europe and the Americas.<ref name=":2" /> In March 1820, the disease was identified in [[Siam]], in May 1820 it had spread as far as [[Bangkok]] and [[Manila]]; in July the outbreak torched [[Vietnam]]; in spring of 1821 it reached [[Java]], [[Oman]], and [[Anhai]] in [[China]]; in 1822 it was found in [[Japan]], in the [[Persian Gulf]], in [[Baghdad]], in [[Syria]], and in the [[Transcaucasia|Transcaucasus]]; and in 1823 cholera reached [[Astrakhan]], [[Zanzibar]], and [[Mauritius]].<ref name="Hays" />
[[File:First cholera pandemic - Southwest Asia and Eastern Africa.PNG|thumb|Cholera dissemination across Southwest Asia and Eastern Africa 1821–1823]]
When the epidemic reached Russia and specifically [[Astrakhan]], their response was to formulate an anti-Cholera program in 1823.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last=McGrew|first=R. E.|title=The First Cholera Epidemic and Social History|date=1960|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44446659|journal=Bulletin of the History of Medicine|volume=34|issue=1|pages=61–73|jstor=44446659|issn=0007-5140}}</ref> This program was headed by a German physician by the name of Dr. Rehmann.<ref name=":1" /> The Anti-Cholera program inspired the creation of a medical-administration board by [[Alexander I of Russia|Tsar Alexander I]] that inspired similar medical administration across Europe.<ref name=":1" />

In 1824, transmission of the disease ended. Some researchers believe that may have been due to the cold winter of 1823–1824, which would have killed the bacteria in the water supplies.<ref name="Hays" />

The spread of the first cholera pandemic was closely linked to warfare and trade.<ref name=":2" /> According to economic history professor Donato Gómez-Diaz, "[advances] in commercial exchange and navigation contributed to cholera’s dispersion."<ref name=":7">{{Cite book|last=Gómez-Diaz|first=Donato|title=Cholera Pandemics, 1816–1861|publisher=Greenwood Press|year=2008}}</ref> Navy and merchant ships carried people with the disease to the shores of the Indian Ocean, from Africa to Indonesia, and north to China and Japan.<ref>{{Citation|last=McNeill|first=William H.|title=Plagues and People|page=268}}.</ref> During the [[Ottoman–Persian War (1821–1823)|Ottoman-Persian War of 1821–1823]], cholera would affect both armies in what is modern-day Armenia.<ref name=":2" /> Hindu pilgrims spread cholera within the subcontinent, as had happened many times previously, and [[British Empire|British]] forces carried it overland to Nepal and [[Emirate of Afghanistan|Afghanistan]]. In 1821, a British military force carried cholera to [[Oman]] after becoming infected with it in India.<ref name=":2" />

==Total deaths==
The total deaths from the epidemic remain unknown. Scholars of particular areas have estimated death tolls. For instance, some estimate that Bangkok might have suffered 30,000 deaths from the disease. In [[Semarang]], Central Java, 1,225 people died in eleven days in April 1821.<ref name="Hays" /> In total, over 100,000 people died as a result of cholera on Java during the first pandemic.<ref name=":6">{{Cite web|title=Cholera – Cholera through history|url=https://www.britannica.com/science/cholera|access-date=2020-12-10|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|language=en}}</ref> Also in 1821, [[Basra|Basra, Iraq]] saw 18,000 deaths in less than a month's time.<ref name=":6" /> In the same year, it is estimated that up to 100,000 deaths occurred in Korea.<ref name=":7" /> Vietnamese royal archives recorded 206,835 people died from the disease.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Nguyen |first1=Duy Thien |title=Migration and Change in the Way of Life: An Anthropological Introduction to the Vietnamese Community in Laos |date=2008 |publisher=Thế Giới Publishers|location=University of Michigan |pages=45}}</ref> In the southwest of the [[Mekong Delta]], the outbreak swept through the constructing [[Vĩnh Tế Canal]], killing thousand of workers (most of them Cambodians) and triggered a [[Cambodian rebellion (1820)|Cambodian uprising]] in later that year.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Biggs |first1=David Andrew|last2=Cronon|first2=William|title=Quagmire: Nation-Building and Nature in the Mekong Delta |date=2012 |publisher=University of Washington Press|pages=67}}</ref> The well-known novelist [[Nguyễn Du]] died contracting the disease.<ref>{{cite web |title=Gần 70 trận dịch bệnh ở Việt Nam thế kỷ 19, thi hào Nguyễn Du qua đời vì dịch |url=https://tuoitre.vn/gan-70-tran-dich-benh-o-viet-nam-the-ky-19-thi-hao-nguyen-du-qua-doi-vi-dich-20200228213420323.htm |website=Tuoitre.vn |publisher=Tuổi Trẻ |date=29 February 2020 |language=Vietnamese |quote=Thi hào Nguyễn Du chết trong trận dịch này}}</ref>

During the [[Ottoman–Persian War (1821–1823)|Ottoman–Persian War of 1821–1823]], cholera and plague outbreaks also ravaged [[Qajar Iran]]. Contemporary Persian sources report that around 100,000 people died due to these diseases in the region.<ref name="Hidayet">Hidayet, ''Tārīkh-i Rawżat al-Ṣafā-yi Nāṣirī: Volume Nine, Part Two, Continuation of the Reign of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shāh'', p. 7798.</ref> Ottoman historian [[Ahmed Cevdet Pasha|Cevdet Pasha]] noted that the cholera epidemic severely impacted the Iranian army, forcing [[Abbas Mirza]]’s troops into retreat and leaving many soldiers unburied.<ref name="Cevdet">Cevdet Pasha, ''Tārīkh-i Cevdet'', vol. X, p. 12.</ref> According to Cevdet, the epidemic was one of the decisive reasons for Iran's decision to end the war and make peace with the Ottoman Empire.<ref name="Azap">Eralp Yaşar Azap, ''The Epidemic in the 1820–1823 Ottoman–Persian War and Its Effect on the War,'' [https://www.academia.edu/44808572 academia.edu], pp. 90–91.</ref>

As for India, the initially reported mortality rate was estimated to be 1.25 million per year, placing the death toll at around 8,750,000.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Moreau de Jonnès |first1=Alexandre |title=Rapport au Conseil Supérieur de Santé sur le choléra-morbus pestilentiel ... |date=1831 |publisher=Chez les Frères Reycend et Comp. |location=University of Lausanne |pages=75–76 |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5424131n/f85.image.texteImage |language=FR}}</ref> However, this report was certainly an overestimation as David Arnold writes: "The death toll in 1817–21 was undoubtedly great, but there is no evidence to suggest that it was as uniformly high as Moreau de Jonnès presumed. [...] Statistics collected by James Jameson for the Bengal Medical Board showed mortality in excess of 10,000 in several districts. [...] Although reporting was sketchy, for the Madras districts as a whole the mortality during the height of the epidemic appears to have been around 11 to 12 per 1,000. If this figure were applied to the whole of India, with a population of some 120–150 million, the total number of deaths would have been no more than one or two million."<ref name="Arnold">{{cite book | last= Arnold | first= David | title= Colonizing the Body: State Medicine and Epidemic Disease in Nineteenth-Century India |date= 1993 |publisher= [[University of California Press]] | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=QzaWUtZwAXIC |isbn= 978-0-520-08295-3 | pages= 161–163}}</ref>

==Racism and xenophobia==
According to historian Samuel Kohn, in [[Ancient history|antiquity]], epidemics frequently brought members of a society together.<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal|last=Cohn|first=Samuel K.|date=2012-11-01|title=Pandemics: waves of disease, waves of hate from the Plague of Athens to A.I.D.S.|journal=Historical Research|volume=85|issue=230|pages=535–555|doi=10.1111/j.1468-2281.2012.00603.x|issn=0018-246X|pmc=4422154|pmid=25960572}}</ref> However, some diseases such as cholera produced the opposite result, triggering blame and even violence against those people who were perceived as being from regions in which people were believed to be infected with the disease.<ref name=":4" /> Oftentimes, fear of cholera outbreaks would lead to increased racial tensions.<ref name=":5">{{Cite book|last=Hamlin|first=Christopher|title=Cholera: The Biography|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2009}}</ref> The cholera pandemic's origin in India led to a rise in anti-Asian sentiment, especially [[Anti-Indian sentiment|towards Indian people and culture]], in the [[Western world|West]] during the initial outbreak and following more outbreaks decades later.<ref name="JA">{{cite web|url=https://daily.jstor.org/anti-asian-racism-in-the-1817-cholera-pandemic/|title=Anti-Asian Racism in the 1817 Cholera Pandemic|website=JSTOR Daily|date=20 April 2020 |language=en|access-date=12 May 2020}}</ref> The disease was subsequently associated with Asia and South Asia, in particular, was seen as in some way to blame for cholera.<ref name="JA"/> Derision towards Indian cultural practices, especially Hindu pilgrimages, and hygiene following the initial outbreak were reported.<ref name="JA"/> Speaking about the anti-Asian sentiment that rose after the outbreak, British historian [[David Arnold (historian)|David Arnold]] wrote that "the Indian origins of cholera and its almost global dissemination from Bengal made the disease a convenient symbol for much that the west feared or despised about a society so different from its own".<ref name="JA"/> Medical professionals of the time were also noted for relying on moral judgments and generalizations of Indian people on pilgrimages.<ref name="JA"/> The sanitary commissioner of Bengal, David Smith, wrote that "the human mind can scarcely sink lower than it has done in connection with the appalling degeneration of idol-worship at [[Puri|Pooree]]".<ref name="JA"/> During the outbreak, the colonial authorities launched inquiries into the medical conditions of [[South Asian ethnic groups|South Asian people]] on pilgrimages and eventually classified pilgrims as a "dangerous class" due their belief that many pilgrims were infected with cholera, placing them under surveillance.<ref name="JA"/> Historian Christopher Hamlin noted that European physicians attempted to distinguish the "new" strain of Asiatic cholera from the "old" strain, and that evidence for a Bengali origin of the pandemic were often based on 19th-century accounts which were "steeped in biases" against Hindu and Indian culture in general.<ref name=":5" />

== Years after 1824 ==
[[File:Carte indiquant la marche du choléra-morbus depuis l'Inde jusqu'en Europe, 1831 - btv1b84409876.jpg|thumb|Cholera dissemination across Asia and Europe in 1817–1831]]
In the years after the pandemic subsided in many areas of the world, there were still small outbreaks, and pockets of cholera remained.<ref name=":1" /> In the period from 1823 to 1829, the first cholera outbreak remained outside of much of Europe.<ref name=":1" /> Its spread into Europe in the years after the initial outbreak started with the spread of the bacterium to the Russian empire yet again.<ref name=":1" /> Historians theorize that the spread back into Europe was largely due to its movement in the [[List of rivers of Russia|Russian river system]] and with passengers on the river.<ref name=":1" /> This movement of the virus in the rivers of Russia allowed cholera to reach England by 1832,<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Rousseau|first1=George S.|last2=Haycock|first2=David Boyd|date=2003|title=Coleridge's Choleras: Cholera Morbus, Asiatic Cholera, and Dysentery in Early Nineteenth-Century England|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44447740|journal=Bulletin of the History of Medicine|volume=77|issue=2|pages=298–331|doi=10.1353/bhm.2003.0086|jstor=44447740|pmid=12955962|s2cid=24728287|issn=0007-5140|url-access=subscription}}</ref> and the Americas shortly afterward.<ref name=":1" /> The bacterium also was theorized to have spread into England from British soldiers returning home after tours of duty in India, many of them serving in the [[Bombay Army]] which was stationed where the pandemic broke out.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Carpenter|first=Mary Wilson|title=Medical Cosmopolitanism: "Middlemarch", Cholera, and the Pathologies of English Masculinity|date=2010|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25733489|journal=Victorian Literature and Culture|volume=38|issue=2|pages=511–528|doi=10.1017/S1060150310000148|jstor=25733489|s2cid=162990691 |issn=1060-1503|url-access=subscription}}</ref> Special deputations from the west traveled to Russia to observe the Russian response and formulate a plan to deal with these pocketed [[outbreak]]s.<ref name=":1" /> Reports from this committee of scientists were bleak, with a Dr. Rauch proclaiming that, "the cholera will not be cured by nature's powers alone without the help of art...".<ref name=":1" /> The conclusion of Dr. Rauch's findings was that no one standardized method was the key to controlling an outbreak.<ref name=":1" /> By 1835, these pockets of the bacterium claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.<ref name=":1" /> This timeline from 1826 to 1837 is widely described as the [[1826–1837 cholera pandemic|second cholera pandemic]].<ref name=":3">{{cite web | last=Handa | first=Sajeev | title=Cholera: Background, Pathophysiology, Etiology | website=Medscape Reference | date=2021-02-02 | url=https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/962643-overview | access-date=2024-06-26}}</ref> The last of the [[Cholera outbreaks and pandemics|seven main cholera pandemics]] in history extends into the modern day.<ref name=":3" />

==See also==
* [[Cholera outbreaks and pandemics]]
* [[Persecution of Jews during the Black Death]]
* [[Xenophobia and racism related to the COVID-19 pandemic|Xenophobia and anti-Chinese racism related to the COVID-19 pandemic]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* {{Citation | url = http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/intro/bio_cholera.htm | contribution = Cholera – biological weapons | publisher = Global security | title = Weapons of mass destruction}}.

{{cholera}}
{{Hajj incidents|state=collapsed}}
{{Epidemics}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cholera Pandemic, 1}}
[[Category:1810s epidemics]]
[[Category:1820s epidemics]]
[[Category:19th-century disasters in India]]
[[Category:19th century in Kolkata]]
[[Category:1810s in India]]
[[Category:1820s in India]]
[[Category:19th-century disease outbreaks]]
[[Category:1820s in health]]
[[Category:19th century in Nepal]]
[[Category:Cholera pandemics]]

1817 1824 cholera pandemic - Revision history

MohammadTit at 01:28, 1 November 2025