The Cholera Cemetery in Sandusky, Ohio

I stumbled across a picture of this place on my facebook timeline and given current events, it was a topic that interested me.

 Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by a bacterium named vibrio cholerae.  The classic symptom is watery diarrhea.  Sometimes it also causes vomiting and muscles cramps.  It is typically caused by food or water that has been contaminated with human feces carrying the bacteria.  It still happens in parts of the world with unsanitary conditions.

 As you can imagine, many of the early towns and settlements had issues with it.  Especially since the disease wasn't terribly well understood.  One of the worst in Ohio occurred in Sandusky, Ohio between 1849 and 1854.  The worse of these happened in 1849, there were approximately 5,500 people in the city.  3,500 of those people would flee and of the people remaining, 400 would die.  As you can well imagine, that number overwhelmed the city and they were buried in a mass grave.  This marker identifies that spot.

These are the only graves that are marked.  I think these people were actually buried here before the outbreak.
Anyway, given the current situation, I thought this was interesting.