Cholera in Canton in 1902…

In March 1902 the American newspapers were advising against travel to Canton (Guangzhou) due to a severe cholera outbreak in the city and surrounding countryside. It was actually a pandemic that seems to have begun in India and then led to a rapid spread of the infection south-eastwards and eastwards. It reached Burma and Malaya in 1901 by 1902 was spreading over most parts of the Far East as far as China and Manchuria, Korea, Japan, and the Philippines.