A Talent For Murder
" 'The roads, in all directions, were lined with well-filled stagecoaches, livery coaches, private vehicles and equestrians, all panic-struck, fleeing [New York City] as we may suppose the inhabitants of Pompeii fled when the red lava showered down upon their houses.' " [1] So said a New York Evening Post writer in 1832, the year a cholera epidemic struck New York City. Cholera was among the most dreaded diseases of the age; periodic outbreaks wrought havoc in the crowded cities of Europe through much of the century, and doctors were no help -- they incorrectly believed cholera spread through noxious vapors and fumes they called miasmas. It wasn't until the 1880s that microbiologist Robert Koch finally isolated the culprit, the bacterium we call Vibrio cholerae. read more