1908 Bong World Map of the Spread of Cholera

Victory of the 'Germ Theory'.

This is a c. 1908 epidemiological map discussing the spread of cholera in five epidemics over the preceding century, published by Deutsches Verlagshaus Bong. It reflects improved understanding of the spread of disease at the turn of the 20th century, including the victory of the 'Germ Theory' of disease over earlier explanations.

A Closer Look

This German-language map depicts the world on a Mercator Projection, with latitude and longitude lines, major rivers, larger countries, and some cities indicated. Color-shading is used to highlight areas where cholera was understood to originate, in the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and southern China, and where it spread with grievous impact, in Indonesia, Korea, and Japan. Arrows trace its spread into other regions as well.

Mapping Epidemic Disease

The 19th century is often referred to as the 'Age of Cholera'; before 1817, the disease was largely confined to the Indian subcontinent, but shifts in global trade, colonial expansion, and the rise of steam-powered travel turned it into a terrifying global traveler. Between 1817 and 1899, five distinct pandemics killed millions and fundamentally reshaped the evolving fields of urban planning and public health. Unlike the slow decline of tuberculosis, cholera was sudden and gruesome; victims could be healthy at breakfast and dead by dinner the same day due to drastic fluid loss, making the disease especially fearsome and shocking.

Before the 'Germ Theory' of disease was widely accepted, the medical community was split into two main camps. The dominant belief for most of the century was that cholera was caused by miasmata, poisonous vapors or foul smells rising from decaying organic matter, stagnant water, and filth. Contagionists, on the other hand, believed the disease was passed from person to person, but could not explain how it traveled over long distances or why some people in a house got sick while others did not. A breakthrough came in 1854, during the Third Pandemic, when physician John Snow conducted a landmark study in Soho, London. He mapped the deaths and noticed they clustered around a specific water source, the Broad Street pump. By convincing local officials to remove the pump handle, Snow effectively ended that specific outbreak. His work provided the first strong evidence that cholera was waterborne, though the medical establishment remained skeptical for decades, clinging to miasma theory because it fit their existing worldview. The debate was not fully settled until 1883 during an outbreak in Egypt and India, when German physician Robert Koch isolated the bacterium Vibrio cholerae.

Publication History and Census

This map was printed by Deutsches Verlagshaus Bong and Company as a supplement to the multivolume work Der Mensch und die Erde by Hans Kraemer, published in ten volumes between 1906 and 1913 (OCLC 1289041629). The map is drawn from one appearing in a work titled Atlas des Endémies Tropicales by Esmonet and Mazarin. We do not locate any examples of this map in institutional collections, while the entire work Der Mensch und die Erde is well-represented in institutional holdings; however, it is unclear whether those examples include this supplement.

Cartographer

Deutsches Verlagshaus Bong and Co. (c. 1890 - 1956) was a Berlin and Leipzig-based publisher known for producing illustrated, educational, and classical literature in the early 20th century. Notable works included Die Wunder der Natur (1913), anatomical flap books, and collections of classical authors like Goethe and Mörike. The firm continued to publish until 1941 but appears to have ceased operations for the remainder of the Second World War. After the war, the company relaunched from Munich and published until about 1956.   Further Details...

Condition

Very good. Light wear along original centerfold.