"L'infausto dono dell'Arabia". Vaiolo e vaccinazione nel Mezzogiorno preunitario (1801-1861)

[Autom. eng. transl.] The volume analyzes the spread of small-scale vaccination in the South in the period between 1801, the year in which the first grafts were practiced in Palermo and Naples, and national unification. The discussion is divided into two parts: in the first section the normative interventions intended to promote the Jennerian method are reviewed, in the chronological sequence, and in the second the actual vaccination practice is examined, with all the obstacles of various nature that they got in the way. The analysis emphasizes that, despite the scarce collaboration of the medical class and the clergy, and the distrust of the population towards an occult technique, with unpredictable effects, the vaccination coverage extended in a slow but decisive way, reaching to interest, at the end of the period considered here, the great majority of the subjects of the Kingdom.