The 1880s Buenos Aires Water Crisis: Cholera and the Sewer

In 1880, Buenos Aires was a city of horse-drawn carts, Italian immigrants, and an invisible disease that could empty a block in a week. This episode traces the cholera outbreak that exposed the limits of the city's water system — a network of shallow wells and open ditches that turned the Riachuelo into a source of death. We follow the doctors who mapped the epidemic, the engineers who pushed for a modern sewer network, and the politicians who delayed it for years. With the federalization of the city in 1880 just months away, the outbreak became a turning point for public health and urban planning. From the first case in a conventillo to the construction of the Recoleta cistern, we look at how a city of 300,000 learned to clean its own water. This episode also touches on the theories of miasma and contagion, the work of Guillermo Rawson, and the birth of Buenos Aires' sanitation infrastructure — a story of progress paid for in lives.

#BuenosAires #Cholera #1880s #WaterCrisis #PublicHealth #Sanitation #GuillermoRawson #Conventillo #Riachuelo #RecoletaCistern #UrbanHistory #Epidemic #ArgentinaHistory #ObrasSanitarias #Miasma #Contagion #History #FexingoHistory

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