In September of that year, the German steamer Elbe docked in London, having left port at Hamburg a few days earlier. A crewman named John Harnold checked into a lodging house in Horsleydown. On September 22, he came down with cholera and died within a matter of hours. A few days later, a man named Blenkinsopp took over the room; he was seized by the disease on September 30. Within a week, the cholera began to spread through the surrounding neighborhood, and eventually through the entire nation. By the time the epidemic wound down, two years later, 50,000 people were dead.
