L’ACQUA FA PAURA: GESTIONE DEL TERRITORIO E SALUTE PUBBLICA NEL BORGO DI SANTA LUCIA DI PALERMO (1810-1811)

Abstract

Even before they were associated with the protozoan Plasmodium, malarial diseases were linked, both in the popular imagination and in medical theories, to a real 'ecological complex' characterised by elements present in the environment, animals, plants and man and his ways of living, dwelling, eating and working. In the context of a Palermo suburb at the end of the nineteenth century, repeatedly struck by 'intermittent fevers', the clear and widespread perception of these complex relationships between natural and social elements emerges.