Author: CHOLERA
Title: Map of the Progress of Cholera in Asia, Europe, Africa> from 95 degrees East Longitude, and Within 10 degrees & 63 degrees Latitude.
Description: The Lancet, 1831. 210 x 270 mm. unevenly browned. Published in The Lancet to illustrate an article on the first global cholera pandemic which aggregated and presented over 700 reports of cholera. For the first time a wealth of international data from a variety of public and professional sources were collected and organised in a manner describing the international geography of a disease whose progress could be literally seen. In constructing this map the authors had "traced the pestilence through 700 irruptions, and shown it ravaging nearly 2000 towns." Each of those irruptions was presented on the map as a circle with a dot inside to represent a cholera reporting city> the authors assumed that the cholera morbus was the same disease in each city, although even as late as the 1850s death certificates identified 15 different kinds of 'cholera.' This map was not global only because at the time of its publication cholera had yet to reported in Canada or the USA. In 1831 cholera was presented as an international, but not yet global epidemic. Within months, however, health officials were reporting outbreaks in North America and it became a truly global pandemic.

Keywords: Maps


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