| Description | Map produced by Dr Samuel Haughton to demonstrate the spread of Asiatic cholera in Ireland in 1866. This map was produced ancillary to Haughton's article 'A scientific inquiry into some of the causes alleged to produce Asiatic cholera', published in the London Medical Times and Gazette in 1867. In this article Haughton argued that cholera travels 'along the lines of human traffic, and improves its rate of locomotion as the facilities of human intercourse improve'.
The map demonstrates the contact theory on the course of the cholera in Ireland, and its progressive appearance at various points. In his article, Haughton explains the numbers on the map as follows:
I. Dublin - this city received its first case of cholera in the person of a young woman named Magee, who imported the disease from Liverpool into No. 22, City Quay, from which point it spread all over Dublin and the suburban towns, 'destroying in six months 1193 persons'.
II. The towns of the second grade are Belfast, Dundalk [County Louth], Drogheda [County Louth], and Wexford. Of these towns, the first three imported their cholera directly, by sea from Liverpool, and the fourth town, Wexford, received its cholera, by sea, from Cardiff, in South Wales.
III. The towns of the third grade are Mountmellick [County Laois], Athy [County Kildare], Mallow [County Cork], Westport [County Mayo], Sallins [ County Kildare], and Limerick. In all these cases there was distinct evidence of the importation of cholera, either from Dublin or directly from Liverpool.
Mountmellick.—September 22, 1866.
Sallins.—September 26, a railway porter.
Limerick.—Before September 26.
Cholera was introduced into the neighborhood of Athy, and into Mallow, directly from Liverpool ; and its entrance into Westport was traced by those residing in the neighborhood to importation from Liverpool.
IV. The towns of the fourth grade are Arklow [County Wicklow], Carrick-on-Shannon [County Leitrim], Longford, and Athlone [County Westmeath].
V. The towns of the fifth grade are Carlow, Roscommon, and Clonmel [County Tipperary]. Haughton traced the introduction of cholera into Carlow to a case imported from Dublin.
VI. The towns of the sixth grade are Cork and Ballinasloe [County Galway]. Cork was threatened, early in the season of pestilence, by the arrival of the Helvetia off the harbor, crowded with German emigrants, among whom cholera had broken out. The Helvetia was ordered back to Liverpool, and imported the disease into that town, from which place it was subsequently introduced into Cork. Ballinasloe received its cholera from Drogheda.
VII. The towns of the seventh grade are Clones [County Monaghan] and Newbridge [County Kildare]. Cholera was introduced into Clones from Dundalk, and into Newbridge from Dublin.
VIII. Tralee [County Kerry].
IX. Mullingar [County Westmeath] and Parsonstown [now Birr, County Offaly]. Parsonstown received its cholera by importation direct from Sheffield, in England ; and this town and Wexford are the only places in Ireland that received cholera from any other centre than Liverpool directly or indirectly.
X. Wicklow and Portaferry [County Down]. The cholera was introduced into Portaferry, as shown on the map, by a herring boat from Balbriggan [County Dublin], and not from Belfast as might be supposed.
XI. Kilrush [County Clare] and Bantry [County Cork]. The cases of these two towns a described in the letter of Dr. Charles Croker King, reproduced in the article.
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