““cholera.” The sickness’s 1832–34 visitation had killed more than thirty-five hundred in New York City. Nationwide, tens of thousands had died. From one stride to the next, an apparently healthy person could be felled by explosive, uncontrollable diarrhea, vomiting, and agonizing cramps. Half of the stricken died, many within a day. Some died within hours. Since few people possessed the courage to minister to the afflicted, and most of those who did contracted the disease themselves, the majority of cholera victims died a horrid death, alone and caked in excrement. The plague had ravaged Europe through the summer and fall of 1848, Crouch, Gregory (2018-06-18T23:58:59). The Bonanza King: John Mackay and the Battle over the Greatest Riches in the American West (Kindle Locations 362-366). Scribner. Kindle Edition. ”
