Microorganisms
\nand the associated diseases that made pandemics possible have occurred with the
\nadvancement of medicine, in the life of modern man. Because of microbes and
\npandemics, healthcare policies were thought out and also because of microbes
\nand pandemics social behavior patterns were changed. In the Romanian space,
\nmicroorganisms and the diseases they caused grabbed everyone’s attention and
\ngenerated healthcare public policies precisely because they caused epidemics
\nand pandemics. The Romanian world in the 19th century had to face a
\ncommon enemy: the plague. However, other enemies, unseen and, until then, unbeknownst
\nto man, had manifested with a destructive virulence. Cholera was one such
\nenemy.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Jointly with
\nphysician, anthropologist and professor Calin Cotoi with the University of
\nBucharest we had a closer look at the new phenomenon that emerged in Romanians’
\nmindset, namely the microorganism. We found out from Calin Cotoi when the Romanians
\nfirst found out about the existence of the microorganisms that generated the
\npandemics.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Part of the Romanians got to know that at the same time when the rest of the
\nworld got to know it, after Pasteur first discovered the lactic acid fermentation
\nand then the alcoholic one. Then Pasteur revealed there was no such thing as a
\nspontaneous generation, meaning that small animals could not possibly be formed
\nout of nothing. The Romanian population elsewhere around the country, apart
\nfrom the numbers that had been involved in the healthcare and medical reform
\nwas rather late to impart that kind of knowledge. In late 19th
\ncentury and early 20th century, the image of the microbe becomes
\nmore popular in Romania. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The fear of
\npestilence of the people in the 19th century was at least as strong as the fear
\nof the medieval man. According to Calin Cotoi, in 19th century
\nEurope, the microbiological enemy was a different one. The plague had by then
\nbecome history and a new, unseen, enemy emerged: the cholera. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Until around 1830 or thereabouts, the plagues had still been reported for
\nRomania. In the 19th century there was Caragea’s plague which
\nclaimed the lives of many, many people. But the most interesting and, to my
\nmind, the most important disease for 19th century Romania was the cholera.
\nI should say, exaggerating things a little bit, that modern Romania was one of
\nthe creations of cholera, of the European cholera pandemics. It is one of the
\nmost creative diseases, socially speaking, in the 19th century, and
\nis very different from the plague, in this respect. The cholera succeeded to
\nbreak through the Hapsburg sanitary cordon, and, from India, its hotbeds
\nreached as far as Paris, London and North America, generating a thorough change
\nin the Western social space and, somehow indirectly, in the territories at the
\nMouths of the Danube. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
There is no
\nsecret that epidemics and pandemics were literally generators of change in
\nhistory. Cholera did not make an exception to that rule either. Calin Cotoi
\nalso shown that imposing the strict quarantine, whereby for 40 days running,
\nany transport of commodities and the movement of people were immediately
\nconfined on the ship or in quarantine stations on the banks of river Danube,
\nall that favored the enhancement of the authority of the Romanian state. <\/p>\n
Calin
\nCotoi:<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The Romanian state created quarantine stations on the banks of river Prut, but
\nmainly on the banks of river Danube. This time, the quarantine stations are
\nvery tough, it’s just that, once created, these stations enter a time of
\ncrisis. The Romanian state increasingly depended on the trade of grains, which
\nprovided a source of financing and subsistence, and that grains trade is
\njeopardized by too tough a quarantine. So there was always a tension between
\nthe freedom of trade and the danger of cholera. I think it was out of that
\ncrisis dilemma that Romania was created.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
In the early 19th
\ncentury, Europe was hit by cholera, a new, unbeknownst disease, against which
\nno form of efficient fight had been discovered. The fact that the Romanian
\nspace was modernized, becoming more European, made it possible for solutions
\nand treatments of the developed states to reach the Romanian space. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Calin Cotoi:<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
SOUNDBITE V.M.:
\nThe cholera had no problem breaking through the old sanitary cordons that had
\nbeen erected especially against the plague and, elsewhere around the world,
\nagainst the yellow fever, devastating a Europe where the commercial, industrial
\nand urban progress saw their heydays. Europe had been taken by surprise by the
\nvirulence of the cholera. As a reaction to that unknown disease, Europe created
\nseveral governance and medical systems, as we well as systems of recording the
\ndiseases and of certain theories on the relationship the social milieu had with
\nthe disease. All that put together provided a makeover regarding to European administration
\nand governance. Such public hygiene models, models of public policy, reached
\nRomania as well, somehow transforming the society. Those international models
\noccurred, as a reaction to that terrible and unknown disease. In Romania, they
\nfailed significantly, because of the rift between the urban and the rural
\nareas. In the urban areas the implementation of the public hygiene methods was
\nsuccessful, to a certain extent, yet in the rural regions, the failure of all
\nthat was blatant.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
In 19th
\ncentury Romania, microorganisms and pandemics did not cause only sorrow and
\ndeath, just as they had caused in the previous centuries. The contacts with the
\nWestern European world made it possible for the Romanian world to turn from a
\nworld of pessimism and fatalism into a world that had real possibilities of
\neradicating all forms of pestilence. <\/p>\n
(Translation by Eugen Nasta)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Microbes, diseases and pandemics in 19th century Romania<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":83019,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45210],"tags":[45576,45577,42815],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-169592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rri-encyclopaedia","tag-cholera","tag-hygiene","tag-plague"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n