Oral rehydration therapy was developed in the 1960s. During the past three decades it has been used widely and successfully in the treatment of cholera and other diarrheal diseases. The use of oral rehydration therapy prevents the deaths of 1 million to 2 million children each year.¹ Cholera is an old, killer disease with the potential to create great pandemics. The disease is endemic in Asia, and there have been recent epidemics in Africa and Latin America and sporadic cases in the United States. These epidemics, together with the isolation and spread of a new type of vibrio cholera, O139 . . .