5. The first pandemic outbreak of cholera, the early 19th century saw the deadly infection plague cities throughout Asia on a scale never before seen
The First Cholera Pandemic, also known as the First Asiatic Cholera Pandemic, was an outbreak of the eponymous infection between 1817 and 1824. Beginning in the Indian city of Calcutta, which had long endured the effects of the deadly infection, for the first time a cholera epidemic spread throughout Asia and beyond to reach an unprecedented range of victims. Reaching Siam by March 1820, in May of the same year Bangkok and Manila became affected. The spring of 1821 saw Java, Oman, and China struck, whilst in 1822 Japan, the Persian Gulf, and the Caucuses were afflicted, and the choleric pandemic even reached Mauritius in 1823.
Affecting the soldiers of the British Empire, these personnel were intimately involved in the widespread transmission of the infection. Transporting the epidemic overland and by sea, the inter-connectivity of the imperial possessions played a huge role in elevating cholera to pandemic status. Whilst, due to the lack of official records, formal death tolls are difficult to calculate, it has been estimated that the outbreak was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands. Bangkok suffered at least 30,000 fatalities, whilst in Semarang, on the island of Java, at least 1,225 died across just eleven days in April 1821 from cholera.