Epidemie ottocentesche: colera, pellagra e problemi alimentari nelle fonti letterarie

Two of the most representative diseases of the nineteenth century, cholera and pellagra, share a particular relationship with food. If for the first “urban” epidemic, food was considered as a means of treatment by a vacillating medical establishment, in the case of the second, the rural endemic par excellence, food was the cause of its classist expansion. The literary texts, considered here as sources, preserve precious testimonies on how nutrition has been considered in relation to diseases, precisely in the century of the birth of modern medical science, and has therefore found its own epistemological space in studies.