DR John Carnes must have become immune to appalling sights and stomach-churning stenches as he fought the cholera epidemic that raged through Coxhoe in the early weeks of 1867.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, could have prepared him for the scene in one hovel occupied by a man and his wife who earned a meagre living hawking goods from farm to farm.

When the doctor called on their hovel, he found the woman lying on the floor, stricken by the disease. He took off his coat, laid it over her, and arranged for a bottle of whisky to be sent to the house so that small doses could be administered to her.

He returned a day later and found the woman dead, and upon her arm a famished cat was feasting.

Her husband lay a few metres away in an unnaturally heavy sleep – beside him was the whisky bottle, empty.

This is the most gruesome of the stories that will be told at Coxhoe Local History Group’s exhibition on Saturday. Indeed, with maps, pictures, memories and hands-on activities courtesy of Beamish Museum, there will be plenty of more pleasant experiences.

But Coxhoe’s cholera epidemic came at the tail of a terrible period in North-East history. The epidemic had broken out on October 17, 1831, when “the Blue Girl” – 12-year-old Isabella Hazard – had turned an unhealthy shade and expired in Sunderland.

For nearly 40 years, the disease raged through the region’s industrial communities, killing many thousands.

Coxhoe escaped until 1.30pm on December 28, 1866, when Martin Cuthbert was taken ill at the colliery and sent home. He died at 11am the following day, and Coxhoe – population about 1,600 – was gripped with fear.

By the end of January, there had been 27 deaths, many of them in West Hetton Houses.

“These blocks of buildings are in the most wretched conceivable condition of dilapidation and dampness,” wrote the British Medical Journal.

“In the whole village there is but one public privy, of the rudest construction, and in the most abominable condition.”

Heaps of rotting refuse piled against the house walls. As there was only one well at the top of the village, people drank the rainwater from the gutter as it sluiced down the street.

On January 22, Dr Carnes wrote in his diary that a hospital had been created at the colliery, and two houses had been taken over to contain the dead.

“No spirit is supplied to anyone now save at the hospital where we have a small supply of port wine and brandy besides a plentiful supply of chloride of lime and carbolic acid,” he wrote on January 23. “Two men had to be engaged to remove the dead and burn the clothes. They are allowed 5s a day when on duty and two glasses of whisky.”

Dr Carnes acted as nurse and undertaker, and, with the villagers overtaken by terror, a macabre rumour spread faster than the plague that he was poisoning his patients and receiving £5-a-death.

He called a public meeting to clear the air. Several people spoke kindly of his efforts to save their relations, and when it was all over, the survivors clubbed together to give him a testimonial.

But, in the meantime, what scenes he saw! In one house, he found a dead child lying on a box, her body covered by a dirty rag while in the corner of the room, her mother lay dying on a filthy bed of straw.

“Stephenson’s case was, without any exception, one of the worst,” wrote the doctor. “He was lying with scarcely covering on him, except a counterpane and sheet – a family of six children, not one of whom had either shirt or shift on their backs.”

In Coxhoe, cholera burned itself out by the end of February. About 50 people had died in less than two months.

•Coxhoe Local History Group is putting on an exhibition on Saturday at the village hall, from 10am to 2pm. It will show the history of the area from Iron Age times, through to collieries and railways and on to modern times. Beamish Museum is providing a pit cottage kitchen with domestic items that people can try. There will be dressing-up clothes for children, a proggy mat that people can add to, an 1820s book of remedies and a collection of chamber pots.

Entry is £1.