Green’s Dictionary of Slang

cobbler’s marbles n.

Asiatic cholera.

1829		Morn. Post (London) 24 Sept. 3/3: Please sir, i do want a bottle of your best Daffy’s for my old man. He’s lying at home very ill in his bowls. I be a feared as he he’s got the ‘cobbler’s marbles’.
1832		Bristol Job Nott 6 Sept. 155: There are two or three very prevalent mistakes respecting the cholera morbus [...] Very ignorant people call it ‘cobbler's marbles’ but those who are a cut above the vulgar, give it the more refined name of the ‘blue coral’.
1852		Yankee Notions Dec. 370/2: Doctor.— Why, Mr. Milkwhite, what’s the matter? Milkwhite. — Oh, Doctor! I’ve got the yailer jarnders, or the cobbler’s marbles, or some of them pesky disorders.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor III 132/2: I was to give you the cobbler’s marbles with the hen-flew-out-of-the-window.
1883		Red Dragon (Wales) 4 433: He took very bad last night [...] Here is the certificate, sir — a case of Cobbler's Marbles, I’m afraid.
1892		E.G. Parry Story of Dick 85: I minds when Mrs. Greggs was took with the cobbler’s marbles, as they did call it at the time.