Signs and Symptoms
The primary symptoms of cholera are profuse, painless diarrhea and vomiting of clear fluid. These symptoms usually start suddenly, one to five days after ingestion of the bacteria. The diarrhea is frequently described as "rice water" in nature and may have a fishy odor. An untreated person with cholera may produce 10 to 20 litres (3 to 5 US gal) of diarrhea a day with fatal results. For every symptomatic person, 3 to 100 people get the infection but remain asymptomatic. Cholera has been nicknamed the "blue death" due to a patient's skin turning a bluish-gray hue from extreme loss of fluids.
If the severe diarrhea is not treated with intravenous rehydration, it can result in life-threatening dehydration and electrolyte imbalances. The typical symptoms of dehydration include low blood pressure, poor skin turgor (wrinkled hands), sunken eyes, and a rapid pulse.
Read more about this topic: Cholera
Famous quotes containing the words signs and/or symptoms:
“So saying, her rash hand in evil hour
Forth-reaching to the Fruit, she plucked, she eat.
Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat,
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe
That all was lost.”
—John Milton (16081674)
“Not being a K.N. [Know-Nothing] I am left as a sort of waif on the political sea with symptoms of a mild sort towards Black Republicanism.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (18221893)