Cottage scenes during the cholera : $b being extracts from a diary written in July and August, 1832Coppard, William Isaac
Religion
Cottage scenes during the cholera : $b being extracts from a diary written in July and August, 1832
Coppard, William Isaac
Cholera -- Great Britain; Coppard, William Isaac, -1865 -- Diaries
With the exception of these two cases, nothing occurred beyond the usual
routine of visiting convalescent patients, or those taken with slight
attacks, from the end of August to the 3rd of October. During that
period, the attendance at meetings of the Board of Health, and constant
communication with the Central Board, as well as ordinary parish duties,
were attended to. On the 3rd of October, it was reported, and with
devout thankfulness acknowledged, that the disease was mercifully
withdrawn from the parish—the plague was stayed—and the Board of Health
was adjourned. Thus terminated the progress of the fearful visitation in
this parish. Thirty deaths, chiefly from the village of Underwood, had
occurred between the 13th of July and the 27th of August. In the
adjacent town of Plympton, where the population by the census of 1831 was
804, there were twenty-two deaths between the 12th of August and the 21st
of September.
CONCLUSION.
HERE it may be useful to make a brief allusion to some of the
circumstances connected with the progress of the disease in this rural
district. The first patient who died of the cholera at Underwood,
arrived there two days before she was taken ill, from Plymouth, where the
disease was making fearful havoc. After her death, nearly a fortnight
elapsed, when two other deaths occurred, of persons who were dwelling
near the centre of the village. Then the disease visited the extreme
western end, taking its course eastward, and at that end finished its
career. The time of its duration was between two and three months: its
fatal effects were limited to about five weeks.
Nearly a month after the disease had visited Plympton St. Mary, it
proceeded to Plympton St. Maurice, commencing on the 12th of August, in
the middle of the town; then, as it had done at Underwood, it went to the
western extremity, afterwards taking its course eastward, and, on the
20th of September, ceased at one of the last houses in that direction.
Although in both parishes its fatal effects were limited to five weeks,
it lingered in the neighbourhood some weeks afterwards.
It may be supposed that, because the malady, during the later period of
its existence at Underwood, did not prove fatal, it was understood better
than at first, and that the medical treatment was on that account more
successful. But if so, it would not have been so fatal afterwards at
Plympton; as it was in the hands of the same medical practitioner.
It may be worthy of remark, that towards the end of August, the weather
became cooler, and the vapour which rises in the valley below Underwood,
concentrated in a white frost, though in a slight degree, in the month of
September; to which the gradual disappearance of the disease was in some
measure attributed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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