Almost from the moment the first Europeans arrived on the North American continent in 1492, American history has been repeatedly afflicted with major and minor cycles of disease. But it wasn't until the reign of King Cholera, from 1832 to 1873, that a major epidemic scourged the final frontier, causing more than 150,000 deaths. Cholera became America's first reportable disease because of the significant effects it had on health. Known as the Poor Man's Plague, the disease is believed to have traveled throughout America via British land- and sea-trade routes and may have also been carried to the continent by English immigrants.