In 1832, a cholera epidemic swept through the Town of York killing an estimated 400 people out of a population of 5000 within a single year.

 In 1832, a cholera epidemic swept through the Town of York killing an estimated 400 people out of a population of 5000 within a single year.

York's General Hospital was overflowing with patients with care being administered in fever sheds. Initial cases were first reported in Bengal, India, and it soon was being unconsciously spread internationally via immigration and commerce travel, eventually finding its way to York from Ireland and England. At the time, it was believed that all diseases were spread through “miasma” or the inhalation of “bad air.” The ruling elite believed that lower income residents and immigrants were the cause and aimed to clean the foul air by burning tar, forcefully removing people from the already filthy and sewage filled streets, and denying many the right to a proper burial. Instead, most were buried in mass graves with the most notable pit being located behind St. James Church. The chaos of the epidemic is captured in this 1832 painting by Joseph Légaré which shows the terrified citizens of Quebec trying to deal with the disease (Courtesy National Gallery of Canada). In the end, the cure for cholera would be clean water but, as germ theory would not be developed for some time, it wasn’t until the 1850s that the link between the disease and the consumption of contaminated water was discovered. York would have to wait another 50 years for clean water with the construction of sewers in the 1880s.