The Routes of Asiatic Cholera from India to America (1830-1832)

The aim of this study is to examine the Western world's struggle against cholera in the 19th century, a time of industrial and scientific progress, with a global approach. Cholera emerged as a side effect of the industrial age, affecting populations and lifestyles. Polluted water sources, poverty and poor sanitation played a role in the emergence and spread of cholera in both rural and urban areas. However, it was the East that the Western world pointed to as the origin of cholera. It is significant that a disease endemic in India and Bangladesh became a global health problem in the 19th century. This article examines the route of the pandemic spread of Asiatic cholera from India to Europe and America between 1830 and 1832, and the widespread death and destruction it caused, as well as the social issues it raised, which left a deep impact on the minds of societies in the modern era. Based on the reports and memoirs of doctors, politicians and officials of the period in question, this study also draws attention to the medical debates surrounding cholera. Until the discovery of the bacillus Vibrio cholerae in 1854, what was known about cholera was extremely limited and the fight against it was unsuccessful. What was agreed upon in the fight against cholera was the practice of quarantine, with its controversial aspects.