Bruno Falconi

Water and the city of Milan at the end of the nineteenth century

Abstract Since the Middle Ages Milan obtained its water supply satisfactorily from shallow wells. Significant problems developed during the nineteenth century, however, prompting the Lombard Institute to announce the Cagnola Award for a three-year study project to analyse the water both chemically and physically and to remedy the problem of pollution. The award was made to Angelo Pavesi (1830–96), a chemist, and Ermenegildo Rotondi (1845–1915), a civil engineer. They concluded that cemetery wastewater should be prevented from entering the city and that the number of deep artesian wells should be increased. Some years later, another problem regarding hygiene and water supply arose and it seemed doubtful whether the principal hospital of the city could fulfil the new hygiene requirements. Pietro Canetta (1836–1903) studied the records of the main hospitals water supply and disposal from 1457, demonstrating that it could be regarded as a model for the supply of good-quality water and for wastewater disposal without polluting the city. Since 1906 all of Milans drinking water has been derived from groundwater; untreated wastewater continued to be discharged into rivers until 2004 but since then all water has been treated.

Geology, conservation and dissolution of corpses by Paolo Gorini (1813–1881)

Abstract Paolo Gorini (1813–1881), an Italian mathematician, is considered one of the fathers of experimental geology, and his work contributed to the evolution of medicine and hygiene. In 1844, he studied food conservation and worked out a method for conserving corpses and anatomical specimens, approved by the Medical School of Pavia. His geological studies mainly concerned mineralisation. At that time several researchers, including Jean Nicolas Gannal (1791–1852), Girolamo Segato (1792–1836), Ludovico Brunetti (1813–1899) and Efisio Marini (1835–1900), experimented on the scientific conservation of corpses. Later (1851), Gorini studied the formation of mountains and suggested experiments and demonstrations to produce volcanoes artificially. These studies were fundamental to realizing the early methods of corpse cremation in order to solve the problem of hygiene in cities and cemeteries. Gorini also supervised the construction of the first crematorium (Woking, UK). Gorini conserved the corpse of the Italian politician Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872). Gorini’s theories were not scientifically confirmed, but his attempt to understand the Universe and the origin of life and evolution by means of a single law is interesting as an early model for the emerging positivism of that time.

Modernity in medicine and hygiene at the end of the 19th century: the example of cremation

Medicine in the second half of the nineteenth century takes on some characteristics of modernity. These characteristics are worthy of our attention because they help us to understand better some of the current problems of hygiene and public health. One of the topics that was most discussed in the scientific-academic milieu of the second half of the nineteenth century was cremation. There was a poetic precedent: the cremation of Percy Bysse Shelley (1792-1822). The earliest apparatus to completely destroy the corpse was made in Italy and Germany in the 1870s. As far as hygiene was concerned, the reasons for cremation were not to pollute the water-bearing strata and an attempt to streamline the cemetery structure. As in an apparent schizophrenia, scientists of the day worked to both destroy and preserve corpses. There is also the unusual paradox that when the first cremations took place, the corpses were first preserved then to be destroyed later. The catholic world (mainly in Italy) and forensic scientists opposed cremation. It was left to the hygienists to spread the practice of cremation. An analysis of scientific literature shows us that if we leave out the related forensic and ethical problems, recent years have seen attention paid to any harmful emissions from crematoria equipment which have poured into the environment. Another issue is the assessment of inadvertent damage which may be caused by the condition of the corpse. Some topics, however, such as the need for preventive autopsies (first proposed in 1884 in Milan) are still a subject of debate, and seem to pass virtually unchanged from one generation to the next.

Vomiting Stones: Mental Illness and Forensic Medicine in 18th Century Italy

Abstract In 1746 the case of a young woman vomiting stones, nails, glasses and other foreign bodies came to the notice of the general scientific and religious communities. The Bishop of Cremona, Alessandro Maria Litta (1671–1754), deemed that a scientific–medical approach was necessary. Paolo Valcarenghi (d. 1780), one of the most famous of Cremona’s physicians, was charged with this task. Many physicians, both local and from the wider area of Northern Italy, became actively involved in the discussion: Martino Ghisi (1715–1794), who was the first to describe diphtheria on a scientific basis; Carlo Francesco Cogrossi (1682–1769, Professor of Practical Medicine at Padua University), who is noted for his parasitic theory of contagion; Carlo Gandini (1705–1788), who introduced some typical traditional Chinese Medicine practices into Italian medicine; and Francesco Roncalli Parolino (1692–1769), who recorded the case in his work entitled Europae medicina a sapientibus illustrata et a comite Francisco Roncalli Parolino observationibus adaucta (1747), a foundational work in the reconstruction of medical praxis in Europe. Their work is amongst the earliest texts from the Italian Peninsula to deny the natural formation of stones in the stomach, with the debate between the religious and scientific communities resulting in the acceptance of the medical explanation.