In Debrecen, the cholera epidemic of 1831 caused great devastation, killing almost 7.5% of the population. The cure for the epidemic was not yet known, so preventive measures (closures, quarantine) were taken to stop the spread of it. Already the news of the disease caused anxiety among professors, who sought to get the latest news from the city. For a long time, they resisted closing the school, but when the epidemic began to take its toll in the city at the end of July, they were forced to act. Many of the students had left the school early, but those who remained were looked after by the professors. As the epidemic situation worsened, the city even considered converting the college into a hospital, but this was eventually abandoned following protests from the professors and the college's curator. School order was finally restored only in the late autumn. The start of the school year was only briefly postponed during the local epidemic of 1866.