Studia Historica: Historia Contemporánea (Mar 2018)
The city against the epidemic. Exanthematic typhus in Madrid in the early 20th century
Abstract
In the early 20th century, the city of Madrid was a simple outline of the great European metropolis that it would represent just before the Spanish Civil War. One of its many deficiencies occurred in the field of hygiene and public health, whose abandonment continued to cause cyclical episodes of over-mortality. This article analyses one of the most important epidemics that the Spanish capital experienced during the first third of the 20th century: exanthematic typhus of 1909. Through the use of several documentary sources (newspapers, health reports, demographic statistics, registration books of the General Hospital of Madrid), we will try to find the causes of this disease, the reactions of the official authorities to combat it and the repercussions that finally had on the different neighbourhoods according to their social characteristics.
