China
Africa
Explore chapters and articles related to this topic
The Nineteenth Century
Published in Scott M. Jackson, Skin Disease and the History of Dermatology, 2023
Cholera is a potentially fatal infection of the intestines caused by Vibrio cholerae, which manifests as severe watery diarrhea. There were six major worldwide cholera pandemics from 1817 to 1923, with millions of people dying over the course of 100-plus years. In 1858, cholera was undoubtedly on the minds of Londoners since the deadliest cholera epidemic in the city's history had ended eight years prior, with a more minor outbreak occurring in 1854. During that episode in Soho, the London physician John Snow (1813–1858), by using case mapping to trace the outbreak to a specific drinking water supply, effectively ended the outbreak by removing the handle to the Broad Street pump, concluding that contaminated drinking water caused cholera, not miasma.17 Although he did not identify a chemical or microscopic source of the problem and the world around him was not yet ready for the idea of fecal-oral contamination, Snow's work with public hygiene foreshadowed the great revolution in medicine—the germ theory of disease.
Epidemiology, Disease Transmission, Prevention, and Control
Published in Julius P. Kreier, Infection, Resistance, and Immunity, 2022
Waterborne microorganisms have been estimated to account for almost forty percent of the annual mortality due to infectious disease. They include Salmonella, Shigella, and V. cholerae. Vibrio cholerae, in addition to being acquired and spread through food, is also spread by bathing in or drinking contaminated water. It remains endemic in India, Bangladesh, and Africa. It has recently caused epidemics in the Americas. In the United States it exists in waters in the gulf coast of Texas, Louisiana, and Florida, Chesapeake Bay, the California coast, and coastal waters to the north. Vibrio cholerae occurs in riverine, brackish water, and estuarine ecosystems, being part of the natural flora of plankton and is found in the gut of, and attached to the surface of, both freshwater and marine copepods. Outbreaks in humans seem to be related to plankton blooms associated with warm sea-surface temperatures. The phytoplankton blooms are a food source for the copepods upon which the cholera bacterium thrives. Movement of tidal waters carries the algal blooms and copepods toward land and into rivers, bringing the bacterium into contact with humans who use this water for bathing or as a source of drinking water. Vibrio vulnificus is another Vibrio that could be found in estuarine waters and from shellfish and occasionally infects man in the U.S.
Treatment of cholera
Published in Dinesh Kumar Jain, Homeopathy, 2022
With the success of the cholera treatment homeopathy became very popular throughout the world. But it was the wrong popularity of homeopathic treatment. I am describing the fact here. Cholera is an acute diarrheal disease caused by Vibrio cholerae. Studies have shown that more than 90% of cholera cases are mild. In severe cases of cholera, painless watery diarrhea is followed by vomiting. The patient soon reaches a stage of collapse because of dehydration. Death may occur at this stage due to dehydration and acidosis. If death does not occur, the patient begins to show signs of improvement. The classical form of severe cholera occurs in only 5–10% of cases. In the rest the disease tends to be mild, characterized by diarrhea with or without vomiting. Generally, mild cases recover in one to three days (Park, 1997, pp. 163–170).
The role of the human gut microbiota in colonization and infection with multidrug-resistant bacteria
Published in Gut Microbes, 2021
Irene Wuethrich, Benedikt W. Pelzer, Yascha Khodamoradi, Maria J. G. T. Vehreschild
Resistance development to vaccines is relatively infrequent compared to the emergence of antibiotic resistance,112 but serotype replacement followed by the spread of new MDR serotypes have been observed,113 as well as an increase in invasive, non-vaccine serotype strains of targeted pathogens (e.g. Haemophilus influenzae, Streptococcus pneumoniae).114–116 Pathogenic strains are often heterogeneous and diverse, which increases the complexity of vaccine development.117 Moreover, antibiotic resistance mechanisms are frequently encoded in mobile genetic elements and horizontally transferred.118,119 Vaccines directed at the effectors of drug resistance, such as penicillin-binding proteins and β-lactamases, are being studied in animal models.120,121 Vaccines against gut-associated bacterial pathogens are currently available for Vibrio cholerae (Vaxchora), Salmonella typhi (Vivotif Berna), as well as Bacillus anthracis (BioThrax).
Vibrio cholerae lipopolysaccharide loaded chitosan nanoparticle could save life by induction of specific immunoglobulin isotype
Published in Artificial Cells, Nanomedicine, and Biotechnology, 2018
Mahdi Fasihi-Ramandi, Hamideh Ghobadi-Ghadikolaee, Sajjad Ahmadi-Renani, Ramezan Ali Taheri, Kazem Ahmadi
Cholera disease is the life threatening diarrhea caused by Vibrio cholerae (V. cholerae). This disease is a topical infection of the small intestine and the therefore, the topical defense might be a main determinant of protection against recurrent infection (Onischenko et al. 2016). In general, following a natural infection by the V. cholerae, similar to the parenteral injection of killed V. cholerae whole cells vaccine, circulation of specific antibodies could be detected. These antibodies that rose in V. cholerae whole cells when exposed to people were against LPS, outer membrane proteins, flagellum, etc. Furthermore, removal of anti-LPS antibody from these polyclonal antiserums resulted in substantial loss of its protective effect against experimental cholera (Rahman et al. 2013, Uddin et al. 2014).
Thomas Mann’s depiction of neurosyphilis and other diseases
Published in Journal of the History of the Neurosciences, 2018
François Boller, Nicoletta Caputi
The other great plague Mann describes is cholera, which permeates his novel Death in Venice. Cholera is an acute diarrheal infection caused by ingestion of food or water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. Its origins are ancient, but the rapid modernization during the Industrial Revolution of the mid-nineteenth century propelled the diffusion of the disease and cholera spread across the world from its original reservoir in the Ganges delta in India. In Mann’s novel, the main character, Gustav von Aschenbach, is an admired author, appreciated for the formal perfection of his work. During his stay in Venice, he encounters a Polish family and begins to be attracted and fascinated by the young teenager Tadzio. Despite warnings of a cholera epidemic, Aschenbach chooses to stay in Venice and sacrifices his life to the beauty of Tadzio.