Epidemics have been a constant feature of human history. With varying intensity in different historical moments, they have altered the demographic structure of populations, changed social institutions, culture and everyday living. An infectious disease is a biological and evolutionary interaction between a parasite and its host (and eventually a vector). But at the same time this interaction takes place in a given economic and social context which determines its chances, conditions and development. This is why all pandemics tell a natural story as well as a social and a cultural story. The history of past pandemics gives us a better understanding of what is happening in the contemporary world thanks to an analysis of their causes, the response which different societies mounted in the face of health crises, the profound continuities and discontinuities which have come about at different historical times and which are the result of natural events and transformations produced by science and technology.

Bernardino Fantini is Professor Emeritus of the History of Medicine at the University of Geneva. Born in Nepi (Viterbo), he obtained a degree in biochemistry from the Sapienza University of Rome in 1974 and a doctorate in history and philosophy of life sciences from the EPHE-Sorbonne in Paris. From 1990 to 2013 he was director of the Institute of the History of Medicine at the University of Geneva. He is president of the Italian Institute of Anthropology, the Association des Concerts d'été à St Germain and the Dante Alighieri Society of Geneva.

Informazioni

Entrance ticket to the exhibitions and the meeting: special rate of € 4.00, from 6.00pm, until places last

Palazzo delle Esposizioni - Rotonda

via Nazionale 194