Magdalena Bartnikowska-Biernat
Konteksty Kultury, Volume 17 Issue 3, 2020, pp. 273 - 282
https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.20.022.13136The cholera epidemic originating from the Ganges Valley reached Europe in the 1830s, only to plague the continent in successive bouts until the end of the century. The disease decimated the population and harrowed European physicians, though – surprisingly – not many contemporary sources describing the epidemic have been preserved. One of the few surviving accounts can be found in the letters of Zofia Lenartowicz née Szymanowska, who was travelling around Europe with her husband during the 1865 cholera outbreak. The 1860s were a particularly difficult period for Zofia and Teofil Lenartowicz. Their distress stemmed from their chronic destitution, which in turn exacerbated the suffering caused by the medical maladies experienced by both spouses. In view of this overall misery, the threat of cholera was far from the greatest worry of the Lenartowicz couple, which found a clear reflection in the content of the letters discussed in the present paper.