[BITList] Trickle-down effect

[HUGH]

John,

The old cholera nostra was certainly a force in the land at that time, but I
was surprised to uncover evidence that this fair town (Port Glasgow),
notwithstanding its closeness to disease-ridden Greenock, was relatively
free of it.  I have an unfinished article on the cholera, from which :

"Since I settled here (in 1816)," he wrote, "I have never, except in the
years 1825 and 1826, met with any cases of Cholera at all resembling those
just detailed. In each of these years there appeared from three to four
cases of unusual severity occurring at intervals of several weeks."

He went on, "From that period up to the present year, I have never seen a
single case of Cholera ; and, for sixty-four years previous to 1825, the
town and neighbourhood had enjoyed a similar exemption from its presence."

The writer was Dr Marshall, a physician in the town, and the cholera he
mentioned was the cholera nostra. Anything that included the runs was
cholera nostra at that time - the cholera morbus was the killer, and that
was only starting to appear over the horizon from Europe.

Dr Marshall attributed the town's freedom from the runs (and worse) to its
situation by the river, fine views and salubrious air.  He was writing in 
1831.

The unfinished article is mine, not Dr Marshall's.

Hugh.