Environnements pathogènes

Pathogenic Environments


edited by Guillaume Linte & Paul-Arthur Tortosa

Centaurus. Journal of the European Society for the History of Science, Volume 65 (2023), Issue 1.

At the crossroads of environmental and medical history, this special issue deals with "pathogenic environments", i.e. regions, places or milieus perceived as particularly harmful to health. First, it sheds light on how some environments are constructed as such by a number of medical specialties, like occupational or tropical medicine. These spaces are also objects of lay thinking, from legends on cursed lands to modern popular epidemiology. Secondly, pathogenic environments are also living spaces. In order to survive in hostile environments, dwellers adjust their daily behaviours, from their diets to their working practices. Finally, pathogenic environments can also be modified as a whole and shaped through architecture, cultivation and topography or by setting up intermediate environments. Yet, not all human endeavours are successful, which leads us to analyse the failures of individuals as well as collective confrontation with hostile environments: depopulated land, decimated armies, missed shipments.

Table of contents

Guillaume Linte, Paul-Arthur Tortosa, "The Most Unhealthy Spots in the World": Thinking, Dwelling in and Shaping Pathogenic Environments


Guillaume Linte, “The Salvation of the Seamen”: Ventilation, Naval Hygiene and French Overseas Expansion during the Early Modern Period (c. 1670-1790)


Paul-Arthur Tortosa, Aetiologies of Blame. Fevers, Environment, and Accountability in a War Context (France and Italy, c. 1800)


Marco Emanuele Omes, “In aria sana”. Conceptualising Pathogenic Environments in the Popular Press: Northern Italy, the 1820s-1840s


Costanza Bonelli, “Some Typically African Risks”: Safeguarding the Health of Italian Settlers during the Fascist Empire (1935-1941)


Lea Delmaire, Locating the Health Hazard, Surveilling the Gecekondu. The Tuberculosis Control Pilot-area of Zeytinburnu, Istanbul (1961-1963)


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