When cholera first reached Europe and North America in 1832, it shocked people by how fast it killed. Fluids poured uncontrollably from both ends of the body. Severe dehydration turned the skin blue, the blood thickened, and the eyes sank. The disease returned to the Americas four more times that century. In Ontario, then Upper Canada, it struck first in 1832.
How cholera reached British North America
Immigrants from Britain brought it: English, Scots, and Irish. Cholera had been raging in Britain since 1831. People arrived exhausted on overcrowded, filthy ships and ended up in waterfront sheds and slums. Shared privies, no sewers, drinking water from rivers and wells contaminated with feces.
From Quebec westward
The first confirmed cases were in Quebec City (8–10 June 1832). From there the infection moved quickly to Montreal and west along the river and lakes.
York, Kingston, Hamilton
In York, today’s Toronto, the first cases appeared around 21 June 1832. Kingston, Hamilton, Niagara and other settlements along the waterways followed. People fled to the countryside in panic and spread the disease farther.
Summer peak
The peak came in July and August 1832. Cholera is a summer disease and thrives in heat. By September it was fading; by autumn the epidemic had largely burned out.
Authorities set up temporary hospitals and fever sheds, declared quarantines, and cleaned the towns. The real cause, bacteria in water polluted with feces, was not yet known.
How cholera presents
Cholera is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. It produces cholera toxin, which triggers massive loss of water and salts in the small intestine. It spreads by the fecal–oral route, most often through contaminated water or food.
Incubation: usually 2 hours to 5 days, most often 1–2 days.
Onset is sudden:
profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting, rapid loss of fluids and salts, thirst, dry mucous membranes, sunken eyes, loss of skin elasticity, bluish skin, muscle cramps (especially in the calves), weakness, dizziness, low blood pressure. In severe cases: shock, kidney failure, altered consciousness.
Without treatment a person can die within hours. Some of those infected have only mild diarrhea or almost no symptoms, yet they can still shed the bacterium.
Treatment: fluids, not “cleansing”
Successful treatment is not primarily an antibiotic. It is replacement of lost fluids and salts. Given enough fluid in time, mortality is very low.
In 1832 that idea was only beginning to appear. Cholera was not “curable.” Survivors were mostly those with milder illness, or those who happened to get enough to drink. Death rates in severe cases stayed extremely high. Oral rehydration solution and targeted antibiotics came many decades later.
How cholera was treated in 1832
Typical Canadian and European practice looked roughly like this:
- bloodletting (even 0.5–1 litre of blood) from a patient already losing litres of fluid to diarrhea
- calomel (mercurous chloride) in large doses as a purgative and “cleanser,” often until the gums bled (a sign of mercury poisoning)
- opium for cramps and diarrhea
- alcohol (brandy, port) as a “stimulant”
- mustard plasters, blisters, turpentine, leeches on the abdomen
- hot wraps, rubbing the limbs, ginger tea
Example from Quebec, 1832:
a soldier was bled of 30 ounces, given calomel with opium, a turpentine enema, later leeches and blisters. He survived, but the mercury left him with mouth sores. Historian Geoffrey Bilson called it “benevolent murder.”
How many died
In Lower and Upper Canada the estimate is 8,000–12,000 dead.
Exact figures do not exist: records were incomplete, many deaths went unreported, and cause was often not listed. Among the sick, six in ten often died within hours.
Toronto suffered three major waves: 1832–1834, 1849, and 1854–1855.
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