[The role of sanitary conditions in the Apulian aquedoct construction policy in Bari]. / Il ruolo delle condizioni igienicosanitarie a Bari nella politica di costruzione dell'acquedotto pugliese.

In the city of Bari (Italy), during the 19th century, energetic political battles were carried out between the administrators and governors in order to ensure the population the primary resource for life: the water. In this town, there were no rivers or drinking water sources; the thirsty population drank from public and private cisterns for collecting rainwater. The condition of the pavement, poor maintenance of the reservoirs and the presence of absorbent cesspits in the vicinity of the wells were often the cause of pathogenic microorganisms' infiltration, such as viruses, bacteria or parasites, which were responsible for the most common digestive disorders. This paper aims to highlight the ties between political campaigns for the construction of the aqueduct and the recognition by the scientific community and governors of the causal link between certain diseases and infected water. The case of the city of Bari is exemplary because, according to the statistics of the causes of death, the hygienic conditions of the city changed parallel to the development of urban infrastructures, which radically intensified with the construction of the Apulian aqueduct in 1915, and the sewage system in 1920.

[Women and medicine in Hellenistic society through funerary inscription]. / Le donne-medico di Età ellenistica nelle documentazioni epigrafiche.

The iatrine, the specifically female version of the physician, appear regularly in a range of literary, epigraphical and papyrological sources. During Hellenistic period the figure of the female medical practitioner, non-midwife, have emerged, attempting to move herself up in the medical hierarchy, as some inscriptions testify. The epitaphs of Mousa, Antiochìs and Pantheia are exemplar of this emerging figure in Hellenistic society.

[Saints and diseases: an onomastic relationship]. / Affezioni ultraterrene: Ignis Sacer e chorea Sancti Viti, il retaggio medievale del rapporto onomastico tra santi e infermità.

Praying saints to obtain soul salvation and body recovering was a common practice in medieval time. The history of certain diseases has been strictly related with devotion and pilgrimages. The current nomenclature of particular illnesses is an inheritance of that relationship. Epidemics of S. Anthony's fire, caused by eating contaminated rye bread, and S. Vitus' dance, maybe a kind of chorea, occurred frequently in the Middle Age. The durability of these onomastic associations and the survival of patronage on these sicknesses had a long evolution along the centuries, as shown by a multitude of medieval sources.