#Germ artoon skin#

The first image illustrates many 19th century remedies and preventatives for cholera. Medical writings and images were internationally exchanged, as Western nations tried to find cures and explain the horrifying disease. Germ theory had not been developed, nor was the cause of cholera understood, but bodies were still in danger. Both titled 'Cholera Prevention Man,' they depict a man covered from head to toe in protective layers in an attempt to safeguard himself from the oncoming cholera epidemic. These images were first loaned to the museum-when it was still the National Museum of History and Technology-in 1945 as part of a collection of European pharmaceutical artifacts from the 15th to 19th century. While researching cholera for my advisor at the museum, I found two seemingly humorous cartoons dating to the 1830s in the museum's Medicine and Science collection. This initial visit would kill thousands and 'King Cholera' returned to western nations four more times during the century. Its onset was sudden and it could kill within hours.

#Germ artoon skin#

Dehydration turned skin a deathly blue, made eyes appear sunken, and thickened the blood. When it first reached Europe and North America in 1832, cholera came as a shock to 19th century sensibilities as fluids streamed uncontrollably from both ends.

We now know that the Vibrio comma is a marine organism that spreads through infectious vomit and fecal matter (that can contaminate food, water supplies, and even linen), but cholera remained a mysterious disease throughout much of the 19th century. Likewise, the historian Christopher Hamlin, explains, 'it was the magnitude of the reaction to it that cholera stands out as the signal disease of the 19th century.' Despite its extensive media coverage, cholera was far from the greatest killer of the 19th century (compared to malaria and tuberculosis) and rarely visited western nations. Margaret Linley, cholera became ' a media disease,' through the explosion of widely disseminated writings and images that intensified fear of the disease. One of the first epidemic diseases to excite worldwide hysteria was cholera. When it comes to disease, fear of air quality and of strangers has historical roots. Of course, a more rational version of myself would realize that a cough could be caused by anything. If someone coughs in public, I'll recoil in concern who knows if they have this year’s contagious disease? Every stranger becomes suspect. Fears of transfer erupt and hysteria sets in, at least in the initial months. Every few years, we read the headlines about a new, or resurgent, disease that threatens global health.