Cholera Shall Not Pass!!!
The 1800's were a dangerous time to live in Scotland. A new disease swept the land, a killer that travelled by water; Cholera!
Cholera or it's scientific name, Vibrio Cholerea, is a bacteria based gastrointestinal disease. Highly infectious, it travels from person to person either through contaminated water or through close contact with an infected person. Scotland is a land of waterways, so when Cholera reached our shores, it spread with devastating speed.
Cholera, when contracted, settles in the small intestines, where it produces toxins that the human body can't handle. This causes intense diarrhea in the infected person, who, as a result, may die of dehydration or other complications. The most severe cases could kill victims in less than 24 hours.
Between 1830 and 1870, Scotland faced 4 major outbreaks of Cholera. Communities large and small were devastated by the disease. In 1832, the City of Glasgow lost over 3000 people to Cholera, when it reached epidemic heights. The average death rated for those infected was around 50%, which made many fearful of being contaminated.
So how did Dornoch handle these epidemics? Well, with a frankly no-nonsense attitude. We may think of lockdown as something that is very modern, but people have known to quarantine the sick for hundreds of years.
With Cholera on their doorstep, the people of Dornoch sprung into action! They didn't know what we know today, that Cholera was a waterborne bacteria. This was still the era when diseases were believed to come from miasmas(bas smells), so if the smells were eliminated, then the disease would be too. Dornoch underwent a deep-clean, to keep the air pure and disease-free. Middens(rubbish pits) and dung heaps were removed from the town and the streets and buildings were washed with quicklime. No one was allowed to leave Dornoch and more importantly, no one was allowed to enter. All around the the boundaries of the town, guards were set up to stop outsiders who could carry disease, from entering the community.
Thankfully, this worked perfectly for Dornoch. The quarantining stopped the disease from being brought into the town, and the cleaning of the streets stopped the local water sources from being contaminated (not that the people of Dornoch knew that). Not a single person inside of the town's boundaries is recorded to have died of Cholera.
Yet, despite Dornoch's successful attempts of holding Cholera back for decades, just outside of where the old town boundary lies, there is what is called the "Cholera Stone".
This grave does not belong to someone from someone who lived inside Dronoch, but to a poor man who was brought to Dornoch to be buried on Christian ground after he had died of a mysterious illness. Fearing that the man had died from Cholera, the guards would not let his body be taken into the town. Tragically he was left to the buried right there, just outside Dornoch.
Below is a transcript of what is written on his gravestone, erected by his son:
We will never know if this man died of Cholera or something else, but his grave and stone have remained undisturbed for nearly 2 centuries and can be visited today.
Tìoraidh!
