WARDING OFF CHOLERA: Printed in Nuremberg, Germany, around 1832, this depiction of a woman’s attempts to repel cholera satirizes the abundance of dubious advice about prevention. Little was known about the disease when it first arrived in Europe, but by the end of the 19th century, physician-scientists had identified the culprit bacterium, rendering homemade prevention methods obsolete.THE FRANCIS A. COUNTWAY LIBRARY OF MEDICINE, HARVARD MEDICAL LIBRARYAll the way from the Ganges River delta in India, an unwelcome visitor arrived in Europe in 1831. Its victims suffered violent cramps, vomiting, and diarrhea, along with dehydration so rapid and severe that their skin was rendered a deathly blue. Many died within hours of the first symptoms.
Cholera was one of the most devastating diseases to hit Europe in the 19th century, with a series of epidemics taking hundreds of thousands of lives. And because its cause was a mystery, people were prepared to take any measure to keep it at bay. “They tried all manner of things,” says Christopher Hamlin, a science historian at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana and author of Cholera: The Biography.
Leading theories at the time held that the disease was caught through exposure to foul or filthy air, so measures designed to repel cholera by purifying the air were particularly common, as depicted in this satirical cartoon of a woman extravagantly equipped with chlorinated lime, garlic, various herbs, and vinegar bags. “Anything that tended ...
