Cholera caricature. 19th-century caricature of the disease cholera, with a large marine creature causing other smaller creatures to flee in fear. Cholera, a bacterial infection of the intestines, was often fatal before modern treatments were developed. It spread in infected water supplies and killed millions in the 19th century. The bacterium causing the disease (Vibrio cholerae) was not identified until 1883. Cholera epidemics peaked in the period 1829 to 1851. This French artwork ('Le Volvace, comme le cholera en 1833, passait en se nourrissant de monde') is from 1842, by French engraver Louis-Henri Breviere and French caricaturist J. J. Grandville.