Malaria in Fuente Alamo (18th and 19th centuries)

In the 18th and 19th centuries, Fuente Alamo de Murcia was affected by various malarial outbreaks of the febril illness that affected much of the country, especially the Levantine area. The natural occurrence of several flooded areas adjacent to the ravine close to the populated centre, was the trigger for these outbreaks, whose effects were particularly severe on the population. In the mid-eighteenth century, Don Juan Antonio Garcia Seron decided to take on the colossal work which was necessary to drain the marsh areas, but not until the mid-nineteenth century when the problems caused by the tertian fever disappeared. Thanks to the intensive use of water drawn through the systems of existing qanats (the first created by Lord Seron in 1753 and the second built by his descendants, La Casa de Giron in 1837 to 1840) and by numerous vertical wells which extracted the groundwater by wind or animal power, a decline in groundwater levels and the disappearance of the natural springs that fed the ponds was triggered.