Thus far, the focus has been on diseases to which blacks very definitely manifested special immunities or susceptibilities. This chapter, however, which closes a survey of antebellum “Negro” diseases takes up cholera, a disease to which blacks may well have been no more susceptible than whites, but only appeared to be. Nonetheless, cholera could not be eliminated, because in appearance at least cholera unquestionably preferred black victims and not just in the United States but throughout the hemisphere.

Previously confined to Asia, with India its primordial home, Asiatic cholera, suddenly during the nineteenth century embarked, upon one deadly voyage after another, which ultimately carried the plague to most of the globe. America escaped the first pandemic that began in 1817 and invaded European Russia in 1823. The second, third, and fourth pandemics, however all moved inexorably westward toward the Atlantic and crossed over to the United States during the years 1832, 1848, and 1866.

Historically, inexperienced peoples are dealt with harshly by new diseases against which their bodies have little defense, and Asiatic cholera was definitely a new disease for Americans.