Poisoned Eden: Cholera Epidemics, State-Building, and the Problem of Public Health in Tucumán, Argentina, 1865-1908

In 1895, after enduring two previous cholera epidemics and facing horrific hygienic conditions and the fear of another epidemic, officials in the Argentine province of Tucumán described their home as the “Poisoned Eden,” a play on its official title, “Garden of the Republic.” Cholera elicited fear and panic in the nineteenth century, and although the disease never had the demographic impact of tuberculosis, malaria, or influenza, cholera was a source of consternation that often illuminated ...