The first cholerapandemic, also known as the first Asiatic cholera pandemic or Asiatic cholera, began near the city ofCalcutta and spread throughout South and Southeast Asia to the Middle East, eastern Africa and the Mediterranean coast. While cholera had spread across India many times previously, this outbreak went further; it reached as far as China and the Mediterranean Sea before subsiding. Hundreds of thousands of people died as a result of this pandemic, including many British soldiers, which attracted European attention. This was the first of several cholera pandemics to sweep through Asia and Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries. This first pandemic spread over an unprecedented range of territory, affecting almost every country in Asia.
Origin and initial spread.
Cholera was endemic to the lower Ganges River. At festival times, pilgrims frequently contracted the disease there and carried it back to other parts of India on their returns, where it would spread, then subside. The first cholera pandemic started similarly, as an outbreak that was suspected to have begun in 1817 in the town of Jessore. Some epidemiologists and medical historians have suggested that it spread globally through a Hindu pilgrimage, the Kumbh Mela, on the upper Ganges River. Earlier outbreaks of cholera had occurred near Purnia in Bihar, but scholars think these were independent events. In 1817, cholera began spreading outside the Ganges Delta. By September 1817, the disease had reached Calcutta on the Bay of Bengal and quickly spread to the rest of the subcontinent. By 1818 the disease broke out in Bombay, on the west coast.
Spread beyond India
In March 1820, the disease was identified in Siam, in May 1820 it had spread as far as Bangkok and Manila, in spring of 1821 it reached Java, Oman, and Anhai in China; in 1822 it was found in Japan, in the Persian Gulf, in Baghdad, in Syria, and in the Transcaucasus; and in 1823 cholera reached Astrakhan, Zanzibar, and Mauritius. In 1824, transmission of the disease ended. Some researchers believe that may have been due to the cold winter of 1823–1824, which would have killed the bacteria in the water supplies. The movement of BritishArmy and Navy personnel is believed to have contributed to the range of the pandemic. Hindu pilgrims carried cholera within the subcontinent, as had happened many times previously, but British troops carried it overland to Nepal and Afghanistan. The Navy and merchant ships carried people with the disease to the shores of the Indian Ocean, from Africa to Indonesia, and north to China and Japan.
Total deaths
The total deaths from the epidemic remain unknown. Scholars of particular areas have estimated death tolls. For instance, some estimate that Bangkok might have suffered 30,000 deaths from the disease. In Semarang, Java, 1,225 people died in eleven days in April 1821. As for India, the initially reported mortality rate was estimated to be 1.25 million per year, placing the death toll at around 8,750,000. However, this report was certainly an overestimation as David Arnold writes: "The death toll in 1817–21 was undoubtedly great, but there is no evidence to suggest that it was as uniformly high as Moreau de Jonnès presumed. Statistics collected by James Jameson for the Bengal Medical Board showed mortality in excess of 10,000 in several districts. Although reporting was sketchy, for the Madras districts as a whole the mortality during the height of the epidemic appears to have been around 11 to 12 per 1,000. If this figure were applied to the whole of India, with a population of some 120-150 million, the total number of deaths would have been no more than one or two million."
Racism and xenophobia
The cholera pandemic's origin in India led to a rise in anti-Asian sentiment, especially towards Indian people and culture, in the West during the initial outbreak and following more outbreaks decades later. The disease was subsequently associated with Asia and South Asia, in particular, was seen as in some way to blame for cholera. Derision towards Indian cultural practices, especially Hindu pilgrimages, and hygiene following the initial outbreak were reported. Speaking about the anti-Asian sentiment that rose after the outbreak, British historian David Arnold said, "The Indian origins of cholera and its almost global dissemination from Bengal made the disease a convenient symbol for much that the west feared or despised about a society so different from its own". Medical professionals of the time were also noted for relying on moral judgments and generalisations of Indian people on pilgrimages. The sanitary commissioner of Bengal in British India, Dr. David Smith said,"the human mind can scarcely sink lower than it has done in connection with the appalling degeneration of idol-worship at Pooree". During the outbreak, British authorities launched inquiries into the conditions of South Asian people on pilgrimages and eventually classified pilgrims as a "dangerous class" who were placed under surveillance.
