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| INTRODUCTION THE STORY THEIR SYNOPSIS MY SYNOPSIS THE CHARACTERS VICTOR HUGO FACT v. FICTION FACTS THE SHOW DISEASES RUE DE LA PERLE A PALAVER MEDIA WRITTEN FANFIC/FANART L'HOPITAL OTHER SITE BRING ME HOME |
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| FACTS: DISEASES Ever wonder about the dieases they mention in the book? Where here it all is. |
| CHOLERA In the novel Les Miserables, there is an epidemic of cholera around the time of the inserrection. I don't believe any of the characters have it, but there are hints that Eponine's sick, and her and her sister would be prime targets for epidemics, so one or both of them may have had it. In today's world, cholera is a rarely fatal, usually mild disease, caused by the bacteria Vibrio cholerae getting into the intestines. Most people who come in contact with it escape illness altogether, and the disease is usually gone in about eleven days. There are also plenty of cures available. In the 1830's, however, if one contracted cholera, one would begin to have diarrhoea and to vomit. The infected person would then become dehydrated for an extended period, and, nine times out of ten, they would be dead within eleven days. This disease is usually contracted from infected food or water, and the usual way an epidemic occurs is from a contaminated water supply. It rarely passed from person to person. It usually occurs in children, though breat-feeding infants seem to be rarely effected. CONSUMPTION In Les Miserables, the character Fantine dies of consumption. In today's world, consumption, a common name for tuberculosis, also known as the White Plague, is easily curable. But in Fantine's time, it was almost always fatal. It is an infectious disease found in the lungs, characterized in popular fiction by coughing up blood. Being in fected, however, doe snot neccesarily mean that it will develop to the point of becoming an illness; only about ten percent of infected people ever become sick. It is usually found in people with the HIV virus, those in contact with someone who has been infected, people with weak hearts or lungs, health-care workers, and alcoholics. There are two ways the disease can develop: 1. A person who has had the bacteria living in their lungs experiences a sudden change of health (beginning of drug use, contracting another disease, etc.), which would cause the immune system to be no longer able to fight off the tuberculosis. 2. Someone breathes in the bacteria, and their immune system is unable to fight it off. They become sick within weeks. The symptoms of tuberculosis tend to be persistent coughing, fatigue and insomnia, rapid weight loss, loss of appetite, fever, coughing up blood, and night sweats. In the time of Les Miserables, this disease was very like a plague, and once a person became ill, there was no cure. People lived in such poor conditions and such close quarters that there was no way to prevent it spreading. And, since most who came in contact with the bacteria came in contact more than once, very few exposed to the disease escaped illness and death. |