Another startling thing is that cholera primarily kills by dehydration. You get very watery stools and quickly lose all you fluid. But people did not figure out the apparently obvious remedy to just give people lots of fluids... even bad water.
I know this first hand because my son almost died at the age of two from extreme diahreah (sp). He had something called milk anemia. He was drinking milk and not eating. We learned that about 70% of all fluid goes through the bowels. Andrew had to be hospitalized and on IVs but nothing by mouth for a week.
