In the passage from 'Three Men in a Boat,' what does the phrase '…it was borne upon me that I had fairly got it' in line 3 of the third paragraph most nearly mean?

Please refer to these passages for the next five questions. 'Three Men in a Boat' by Jerome K. Jerome (1) There were four of us – George, and William Samuel Harris, and myself, and Montmorency. (2) We were sitting in my room, smoking, and talking about how bad we were – bad from a medical point of view I mean, of course. (3) We were all feeling seedy, and we were getting quite nervous about it. (4) Harris said he felt such extraordinary fits of giddiness come over him at times, that he hardly knew what he was doing; and then George said that HE had fits of giddiness too, and hardly knew... Show more

Please refer to these passages for the next five questions.
'Three Men in a Boat' by Jerome K. Jerome

(1) There were four of us – George, and William Samuel Harris, and myself, and Montmorency. (2) We were sitting in my room, smoking, and talking about how bad we were – bad from a medical point of view I mean, of course.
(3) We were all feeling seedy, and we were getting quite nervous about it. (4) Harris said he felt such extraordinary fits of giddiness come over him at times, that he hardly knew what he was doing; and then George said that HE had fits of giddiness too, and hardly knew what HE was doing. (5) With me, it was my liver that was out of order. (6) I knew it was my liver that was out of order, because I had just been reading a patent liver-pill circular, in which were detailed the various symptoms by which a man could tell when his liver was out of order. (7) I had them all.
(8) It is a most extraordinary thing, but I never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent form. (9) The diagnosis seems in every case to correspond exactly with all the sensations that I have ever felt.
(10) I remember going to the British Museum one day to read up the treatment for some slight ailment of which I had a touch – hay fever, I fancy it was. (11) I got down the book, and read all I came to read; and then, in an unthinking moment, I idly turned the leaves, and began to indolently study diseases, generally. (12) I forget which was the first distemper I plunged into – some fearful, devastating scourge, I know – and, before I had glanced half down the list of 'premonitory symptoms,' it was borne in upon me that I had fairly got it.
(13) I sat for awhile, frozen with horror; and then, in the listlessness of despair, I again turned over the pages. (14) I came to typhoid fever – read the symptoms – discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months without knowing it – wondered what else I had got; turned up St. Vitus's Dance – found, as I expected, that I had that too, – began to get interested in my case, and determined to sift it to the bottom, and so started alphabetically – read up ague, and learnt that I was sickening for it, and that the acute stage would commence in about another fortnight. (15) Bright's disease, I was relieved to find, I had only in a modified form, and, so far as that was concerned, I might live for years. (16) Cholera I had, with severe complications; and diphtheria I seemed to have been born with. (17) I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid's knee.

 'Plutarch's Morals: On Whether Disorders of the Mind or Body Are Worse' by Plutarch
(1) The fox in Æsop313 disputing with the leopard as to their respective claims to variety, the latter showed its body and appearance all bright and spotted, while the tawny skin of the former was dirty and not pleasant to look at. (2) Then the fox said, 'Look inside me, sir judge, and you will see that I am more full of variety than my opponent,' referring to his trickiness and versatility in shifts. (3) Let us similarly say to ourselves, Many diseases and disorders, good sir, thy body naturally produces of itself, many also it receives from without; but if thou lookest at thyself within thou wilt find, to borrow the language of Democritus, a varied and susceptible storehouse and treasury of what is bad, not flowing in from without, but having as it were innate and native springs, which vice, being exceedingly rich and abundant in passion, produces. (4) And if diseases are detected in the body by the pulse and by pallors and flushes, and are indicated by heats and sudden pains, while the diseases of the mind, bad as they are, escape the notice of most people, the latter are worse because they deprive the sufferer of the perception of them. (5) For reason if it be sound perceives the diseases of the body, but he that is diseased in his mind cannot judge of his sufferings, for he suffers in the very seat of judgement. (6) We ought to account therefore the first and greatest of the diseases of the mind that ignorance, whereby vice is incurable for most people, dwelling with them and living and dying with them. (7) For the beginning of getting rid of disease is the perception of it, which leads the sufferer to the necessary relief, but he who through not believing he is ill knows not what he requires refuses the remedy even when it is close at hand. (8) For amongst the diseases of the body those are the worst which are accompanied by stupor, as lethargies, headaches, epilepsies, apoplexies, and those fevers which raise inflammation to the pitch of madness, and disturb the brain as in the case of a musical instrument, 'And move the mind's strings hitherto untouched.'
 

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