Information about Cholera

The exposition of The Secret Garden starts with the main character, Mary, in colonial India.  A swift-moving cholera outbreak kills her parents and most of the servants in her household.  Below is some historical information I found out about the disease in the 1800s. 

The cholera epidemic of 1832 killed thousands of people in Europe and North America and created mass panic across two continents.Astoundingly, when the epidemic struck New York City it prompted as many as 100,000 people, nearly half the city's population, to flee to the countryside.The movement of the disease across continents and countries was tracked closely, but how it was transmitted was barely understood. And people were understandably terrified by horrific symptoms which afflicted victims seemingly instantly. Someone who woke up healthy could suddenly become violently ill, have their skin turn a ghastly bluish tint, become severely dehydrated, and die within hours.It would not be until the late 19th century that scientists knew for certain that cholera was caused by a bacillus carried in water, and that proper sanitation could prevent the spread of the deadly disease.

Cholera Moved From India to Europe

Cholera had made its first 19th century appearance in India, in 1817. A medical text published in 1858, A Treatise On the Practice of Medicine by George B. Wood, M.D., described how it spread through most of Asia and the Middle East throughout the 1820s. By 1830 it was reported in Moscow, and the following year the epidemic had reached Warsaw, Berlin, Hamburg, and the northern reaches of England.In early 1832 the disease struck London, and then Paris. By April 1832, more than 13,000 people in Paris had died as a result.And by early June 1832 the epidemic had crossed the Atlantic, with Canadian cases reported on June 8, 1832 in Quebec and June 10, 1832 in Montreal.The disease spread along two distinct pathways into the United States, with reports in the Mississippi Valley in the summer of 1832, and the first case documented in New York City on June 24, 1832.Other cases were reported in Albany, New York, and in Philadelphia and Baltimore.The cholera epidemic, at least in the United States, passed fairly quickly, and within two years it was over. But during its visit to America, there was widespread panic and considerable suffering and death.

People Were Puzzled By How Cholera Spread

Though the cholera epidemic could be followed on a map, there was little understanding of how it spread. And that caused considerable fear. Dr. George B. Wood, writing two decades after the 1832 epidemic, eloquently described the way cholera seemed unstoppable:

No barriers are sufficient to obstruct its progress. It crosses mountains, deserts, and oceans. Opposing winds do not check it. All classes of persons, male and female, young and old, the robust and the feeble, are exposed to its assault; and even those whom it has once visited are not always subsequently exempt; yet as a general rule it selects its victims preferably from among those already pressed down by the various miseries of life and leaves the rich and prosperous to their sunshine and their fears.

The comment about how the "rich and prosperous" were relatively protected from cholera sounds like antiquated snobbery. However, since the disease was carried in the water supply, people living in cleaner quarters were less likely to become infected.

http://history1800s.about.com/od/crimesanddisasters/a/Cholera-Epidemic-Of-1832.htm