ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

The body of the Nation: hygiene and daily practices in unified Italy

• In Event: The Science and Medicine of Habits I: Habits, the Body and Space

English Abstract

Following Italian unification in 1861, it became necessary to unify the country not only politically, but also socially and culturally, as the nation was still marked by deep internal divisions. Medicine – understood primarily as education in the care of both body and mind – quickly emerged as a fundamental component of the nation-building process. In this context, hygiene ceased to be merely a set of practical rules and evolved into an all-encompassing science whose stated goal was to create a healthy population. According to this vision, a healthy body produced a more productive worker and a happier individual. Hygienic concepts and practices were therefore expected to penetrate every home, regulating everyone’s daily life. From nutrition to domestic cleanliness, from sleep to sexuality, every aspect of citizens’ lives became the subject of scientific debate and was governed by specific rules aimed at shaping new habits in accordance with the latest discoveries in hygiene science. Numerous scholars – sometimes in collaboration with priests, teachers, and local institutions – devoted themselves to writing breviaries illustrating the good practices to be adopted in everyday life. Thus, food hygiene, domestic hygiene, skin hygiene, sexual hygiene, sleep hygiene, and occupational hygiene all flourished. This is a process in which scientific goals inevitably intertwine with ethical and political objectives: the control and regulation of daily habits also aims – whether explicitly or implicitly – to shape a new class of citizens who are useful, disciplined, and morally aligned with the emerging state. My paper seeks to summarize the role of education in body care within the nation-building process of unified Italy, with particular attention to the development of hygiene science and its influence on the construction of a new national identity.

Author

• Elena Badanai, University of Pisa