Infectious diseases

Name: Cholera

Year: 1835-1837, 1849, 1854-1855, 1884-1886, 1893, 1973

Cholera, caused by some strains of the bacterium Vibrio cholerae, or vibrione, arrived in Italy for the first time during the epidemic which, leaving India in 1817, spread throughout Europe. The contagion moved following the movements of the troops (the epidemic of 1849 mainly affected the areas of the First War of Independence) or of the goods (especially by sea). The first attempts, begun in 1851, to adopt public hygiene practices to stem the infection quickly proved insufficient: Cholera returned in 1854 with the same violence as before.

However, the epidemic of 1854 was a turning point: in England, John Snow analyzed the spreading patterns of the epidemic identifying its spread by water, while in Italy Filippo Pacini identified the bacterium for the first time. Following their discoveries, more effective containment procedures were adopted, which greatly reduced the number of infected in subsequent epidemics.

The last cholera epidemic to hit Italy arrived in Naples in the summer of 1973 but, thanks to a large-scale vaccination plan, it was stopped after a few days, counting less than 300 infected and only 24 deaths.

Source: web