Tisi polmonare e Cholera morbus. Il dramma della tisi polmonare e del colera in alcuni paesi della Piana di Otranto tra Sette e Ottocento

This contribution is the partial result of a broader and more articulated research path on the phtisis, or pulmonary tuberculosis, in the plain of Otranto in the last twenties of the eighteenth century, and on the cholera of 1867 in some localities of the Diocese of Otranto; in particular, the cholera epidemic annihilated hundreds of people, especially in the months of July and August 1867. For the first section, that is the one on consumption, an unpublished appeal trial was used, celebrated in the archiepiscopal court of Otranto between 1782 and 1783 and currently preserved in the Diocesan Historical Archive of Otranto. The collection of letters contains the dramatic events of Ippazio Bello's death by consumption, a very poor man from Botrugno (Lecce). The second section retrieves a lot of information on the 1867 cholera in some communities of the diocese of Otranto: Santa Eufemia, a hamlet of Tricase, Spongano, Diso, Nociglia, Poggiardo and Surano. The most important data are collected from the parish archives of the aforementioned communities. The sequences of the deaths caused by cholera in Surano are also reported in the parish chronicles, in which it is noted that the liberation from the epidemic took place thanks to the prodigious intervention of the Virgin of the Assumption, who since then was venerated under the title of Madonna del Colera.