Cholera is a classic case study of the interface between the oceans and human health, both in terms of the causes (i.e., a bacterium, copepods, and nutrient pollution of coastal marine waters) and its possible prevention (i.e., the possibility of using in situ moorings and satellites to predict its occurrence). Cholera is a serious intestinal disease that has impacted human health for centuries. There are accounts written in Sanskrit of a disease with symptoms resembling cholera on the Indian subcontinent roughly 2,500 years ago (Colwell, 1996). Cholera appears to have been confined to that region of the world until the early 19th century. However, beginning in 1817, a series of seven pandemics evidenced the spread of cholera to regions of Europe, Africa, and the Americas. The first six pandemics all seem to have originated in Bangladesh. Of these, the most noteworthy were probably the second and third, which lasted from 1829 to 1851 and 1852 to 1859, respectively.

Laws, E. 2006. Cholera. Oceanography 19(2):81–83, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2006.69.

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