Modernity in medicine and hygiene at the end of the 19th century: the example of cremation

An analysis of the significance for public health in a historical context helps us understand better some current problems of hygiene and public health. If medicine in the second half of the nineteenth century takes on some characteristics of modernity, hygiene, medicine and public health, occupational and social medicine are ideal areas for this new brand, also in relation to the major socio-political and economic changes of the time. One of the topics that was most discussed in the scientific-academic milieu was that of cremation. Hygienists were among the key players in an increasingly close interrelationship between science and philanthropy. The scientific debate about cremation and operative tests were first developed in the 1870s, particularly in Italy. Soon, in all major European countries, the cremation movement took advantage of the positivist scientific and cultural milieu. Towards the end of the century, this new practice had a strong diffusion even outside Europe.