From plague to cholera: public health and the urban poor in nineteenth-century Italy

The characterisation of Asiatic cholera as the archetypal waterborne disease still holds great weight in the literature concerning historical water infrastructure and the advent of bacteriology. This article posits, however, that the perception and understanding of the disease in nineteenth-century Italy was nuanced and complex and not exclusively linked to water and sewage systems. It analyses the evolution of medical advice on food and drink, implementation of disinfections and quarantines, laundry arrangements and deep urban cleaning, all of which had their roots in anti-plague measures. In so doing, the article casts a new light on cholera epidemics in nineteenth-century Italy as moments of acute crisis for the authority and credibility of Italian magistrates, health officials and physicians but also as contexts for adaptation and change, in which pre-existing sanitary practices and disease perception responded to new social challenges and scientific knowledge.