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The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832, 1849, and 1866

The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832, 1849, and 1866
By Charles E. Rosenberg

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Cholera was the classic epidemic disease of the nineteenth century, as the plague had been for the fourteenth. Its defeat was a reflection not only of progress in medical knowledge but of enduring changes in American social thought. Rosenberg has focused his study on New York City, the most highly developed center of this new society. Carefully documented, full of descriptive detail, yet written with an urgent sense of the drama of the epidemic years, this narrative is as absorbing for general audiences as it is for the medical historian. In a new Afterword, Rosenberg discusses changes in historical method and concerns since the original publication of The Cholera Years.

"A major work of interpretation of medical and social thought . . . this volume is also to be commended for its skillful, absorbing presentation of the background and the effects of this dread disease."—I.B. Cohen, New York Times

"The Cholera Years is a masterful analysis of the moral and social interest attached to epidemic disease, providing generally applicable insights into how the connections between social change, changes in knowledge and changes in technical practice may be conceived."—Steven Shapin, Times Literary Supplement

"In a way that is all too rarely done, Rosenberg has skillfully interwoven medical, social, and intellectual history to show how medicine and society interacted and changed during the 19th century. The history of medicine here takes its rightful place in the tapestry of human history."—John B. Blake, Science

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #134234 in Books
  • Published on: 1987-07-15
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 276 pages

Customer Reviews

Cholera amongst us today5
Raising my children in Central America when the sixth world cholera pandemic reached the shores of this continent heightened my awareness as to existence of this mysterious disease. My children would bring home their cholera awareness materials from school that emphasized hand washing and clean water. Later on, I researched an incident in 1852 when Ulysses S. Grant and the U.S. 4th Infantry were devastated by cholera when passing through Panama on their way to California. However, it wasn?t until I read Rosenberg?s book that I understood how horrible a death from cholera was and yet how easy it is nowadays to treat. Rosenbery brings out so many interesting aspects of the impact of cholera on public health and the fact that the disease has only been known in the Western world for a little over 200 years. Most people think cholera is biblical. The book is an easy read for a layman and too bad it appears to be mostly used as a text book in college.

THE UNITED STATES IN 1832, 1849, AND 18665
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A Classic!5
This book is truely a classic work of history. Although I also read it for a class (Medicine and Society in America), I recommend it to anyone with an interest in medicine, public health, religion, and general social history. In three parallel sections, the book relates the details of the 1832, 1849, and 1866 cholera epidemics. This structure results in some repetition but is needed to fully seen the connections/changes over time. It is extensively footnoted (I recommend you read these too - very interesting) and has a large bibliography... without seeming "overly academic." ENJOY.