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GCSE History · key term
A bacterial disease spread through contaminated food or water, causing severe diarrhoea and potentially fatal dehydration.
Used by AQA, Edexcel and OCR
Paper 2
A bacterial disease usually spread through water or food contaminated with infected human faeces. Severe diarrhoea can cause fatal dehydration.
Revise: Improvements in Public HealthCholera arrived in Britain in 1831 and reached London in 1832. Further major epidemics followed in 1848–49, 1854 and 1866. In 1848–49, more than 53,000 people died across England and Wales.
Paper 1
A disease spread through contaminated water that causes severe diarrhoea and dehydration and can rapidly become fatal.
Revise: Case Studies: Vaccinations and CholeraCholera causes severe diarrhoea, making the body lose water rapidly. This dehydration could kill sufferers within hours. Major epidemics had already struck Britain in the 1830s and 1840s, so the disease was deeply feared when another outbreak hit Soho, London, in 1854.
Paper 1
Revise: Responses to choleraCholera arrived in Britain in 1831, with the first reported case in Sunderland in October. Further major epidemics followed in 1848–49, 1853–54 and 1866. Someone who seemed healthy could develop violent diarrhoea and vomiting, lose large amounts of water and die within hours.
Explain a causal chain rather than listing events: overcrowding overwhelmed sanitation, sewage contaminated drinking water, and cholera epidemics increased pressure for reform.
Separate beliefs from reality: miasma was an explanation people accepted at the time, not the actual cause of cholera.
Do not claim that Snow identified the cholera bacterium or single-handedly caused later public health reforms.
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