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Publications & Reports

Bleek updates readers on the (ongoing) 1863-1875 cholera pandemic (which he terms an "epidemic") as it moves down sub-Saharan Africa, featuring two substantial excerpts from Britain's The Spectator and The Times that account for more than two-thirds of the article. He educates his audience about cholera to calm public hysteria, through no fault of government, surrounding the Renown's arrival at the Cape and avert the inhumane treatment of its passengers.

Printed newsprint glued on paper

21/10/1865

Two cut out columns of newsprint text, positioned vertically parallel, pasted onto a plus-sized A4 unlined sheet with visible warping. No title was subsequently handwritten onto the mount/paper backing.

Bleek comments that the outbreak of cholera in the coastal city of Ancona (Italy) was acute according to the reports he consulted. He speculates that cholera is possibly more prevalent in coastal areas, a theory supported by modern ecological research correlating plankton abundance with increased cholera bacteria, and less prevalent or likely to spread inward towards the interior of a country (Jutla, Akanda, & Islam, 2010: 1). What gives Bleek cause to hope for the Cape's possible immunity is unclear.