Cholera is an intestinal disease causing rapid dehydration due to severe diarrhea. Bodily liquid eliminated from the diarrhea needs to be replaced. Since one of the causes of cholera is found in the water supply, clean and unaffected water is the necessary replacement. This is referred to as rehydration therapy. Either clean liquid replacement by mouth or intravenously can help to combat the disease. The sickness can be fatal within a very short amount of time after the infection begins.

This severe sickness is transmitted in the fecal matter of affected persons. If the fecal material somehow reaches the water supply, the disease spreads whenever the water is ingested by others. Thus, third world countries are at a great risk since their water supply is often less than adequate and is often not kept segregated enough from toilet facilities.

The symptoms of cholera usually appear from a few hours to five days after exposure to the germ. Symptoms do not include fever. Rather, the major symptoms are severe diarrhea, vomiting and rapid dehydration. Within a very short amount of time, the victim of cholera can lose so much weight as to be nearly unrecognizable as the same person.

There is a vaccine for cholera although its duration is short at only two months to six months, after which the protection is minimal. Also, the vaccine offers only about a fifty percent chance of protection from cholera. There is an antibiotic (tetracycline) which is usually effective in treating the passing of the bacteria in the stool and shortening the duration of the sickness. Some strains of cholera, however, seem to be resistant to tetracycline.

Travellers do not often contract the disease if their sojourn in an underdeveloped area is not lengthy and if they are careful about drinking safe water and avoiding local seafood. Usually, we think that Africa and some Asian countries have the most cholera cases and suffering from cholera. However, it is also rather common in some South American and Central American countries. In the USA, cholera is rare although there have been cases in warm, coastal areas wherever sewage gets into the drinking water, especially if seafood from such water is eaten raw or undercooked. The latest major outbreak of cholera in the United States was in 1910 and 1911 when immigrants coming by ship brought a strain of the disease into the country.

Cholera has been fatal to well-known Americans including President James Polk, the son of Harriet Beecher Stowe and the mother of President Andrew Jackson.

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