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MEDICAL COSMOPOLITANISM: MIDDLEMARCH, CHOLERA, AND THE PATHOLOGIES OF ENGLISH MASCULINITY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 May 2010

Mary Wilson Carpenter
Mary Wilson Carpenter*
Affiliation:
Queen's University
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Extract

In 1831 the first epidemic of what came to be known as “Asiatic cholera” bloomed in Britain. The disease, which in previous centuries had been known only in India, was to appear again in Britain in 1848–49, 1853–54, and 1866–67 as pandemics swept around the globe. But it was cholera's first arrival on the shores of Britain in 1831 that struck terror into British hearts. No one knew what disastrous consequences might ensue from this alien plague. Striking down perfectly healthy people, sometimes as they walked in the streets, it could kill within a few hours. So severe was the rapid dehydration caused by violent diarrhea and vomiting, and accompanied by hideously painful cramps, that victims rapidly became semi-comatose and turned blue-white. The Quarterly Review called it “one of the most terrible pestilences which have ever desolated the earth,” and claimed that it had killed fifty million in fourteen years (Morris 14).

Type
Articles
Information
Victorian Literature and Culture , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , September 2010 , pp. 511 - 528
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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