14. The third cholera pandemic, 1846-1863
As did its predecessors, the third cholera pandemic which struck in the mid-19th century originated along the Ganges in India. Before it ended it claimed more lives than any of the other 19th century epidemics around the world. Over 1 million died in the Russian Empire between 1847 and 1851. The epidemic spread to the United States, carried to North America during the Gold Rush. Ships arrived at New Orleans carrying the disease, which spread up the Mississippi River to Memphis, Saint Louis, and Vicksburg. Former American President James K. Polk was among the fatalities from the disease when it ravaged Nashville, Tennessee, in 1849-50. The pandemic reached Japan, China, Korea, Australia, and the South Pacific islands.
Mexico and South America were not immune. Nor was Great Britain, where approximately 55,000 died from cholera, over 14,000 of them in London. Total deaths from the pandemic exceeded 2 million, and were likely much higher. The pandemic changed the way many nations looked at issues such as immigration and trade. In the United States, some physicians and politicians associated the disease with the American south and the blacks enslaved there. In North Africa, the natives blamed the disease on the Europeans. During the third cholera pandemic, Britain’s John Snow postulated the disease was carried in contaminated water, rather than in the air as previously believed.