6533b835fe1ef96bd129f2a8

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Malaria, poverty and medical treatment in the district of Agrigento (1830–1836)

C. Valenti

subject

geographyMarshgeography.geographical_feature_categoryMedical treatmentPovertybusiness.industrymedicine.diseaselanguage.human_languageMalarial feverAgricultureAnthropologymedicinelanguagebusinessSocioeconomicsSicilianMalariaDemography

description

It is kown that the destruction of woods has been the reason of the beginning of"malaria". In the Middle Age there was a lot of forests in Sicily. In the province of Agrigento malaria was already kown especially in Cammarata in 1141; in the area of Burgic in 1172; in Licata in 1398 adin the south of Girgenti (Girgenti was the ancient name of Agrigento) in 1253. Huge expenses of water determined, between 1256 and 1379, the fight against malaria. In the XV and XV1 centuries the destruction of the Sicilian forests could be said systematically begun by the landowners, that had destined the land to the production of wheat. Then, the area of Agrigento was the place where the surviving vegetation ceased its place to the single-crope system (of farming) of latifundium. Because of the lack of trees, the sources were reduced. The erosion of lands in the mountains and the landslips followed, while the rivers became obstructed, the banks broke down and floods increased. In the first half of the XIX century, 1,81% of the province of Girgenti, especially in the west side of the territory, was marshy. As they were not coast and brackish water marshes, there were the anopheles mosquitoes, carriers of malaria and mortality. The Borbonic Government excluded Sicily from the drainage of the territory destined to the continental dominions. About this, even the opposition of the Sicilian owners, that should have paid the costs of the drainage. As they were careless about the damage that the marshes broughtand animated by the yearning of profit, they created a lot of rice-fields, and conveyed the water of the streams, to develop the cultivation of flax and cotton in the same areas. In the zone of Agrigento seven villages had each a ricefield near the living centre, the steeping of flax was practised in 33/42 villages. According to the Malaria Paper of Italy (1882), the province of Girgenti was one of two district of "very dangerous malaria where death-rate reached the highest proportions in comparison with the other villages in regular conditions". Anopheles infection affected above all the villages of Agrigento that were along Salso river, between the two banks of the Platani, near the rivers Naro, Palma and Belice. Malarial fever were, therefore, spread in an endemic and epidemic way: benign relapsing in spring, more dangerous in summer and autumn. In the intense contagious areas, quartan fevers were numerous, while the infection was epidemic. The research in the State Archive of Palermo made by me on the Pathologic Newspapers

https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02452671