'Kill or Cure: Water and Health in the Nineteenth Century' workshop to be held in Venice, Italy from 29th to 30th March 2007. (360G-Wellcome-082166_Z_07_A)

Conference: Kill or Cure: Water and Health in the Nineteenth Century, Venice, Italy (Palazzo Pesaro Papafava), 29-30 March 2007 The nineteenth-century public health movement has been well documented; so too has the use of spas and interest in hydropathic approaches after the 1840s. However, until now there has been no attempt to unite the two strands of scholarship to interrogate the multiple ways in which water was represented and conceived as both a potential hazard and an important health resource in the nineteenth century. The workshop participants will question how ideas on pure water were constructed according to nineteenth-century views and protocols, linking with new research on water and environment. It will also examine the domestic uses of water in relationship to hygienic and curing practices. The workshop participants will question how ideas on pure water were constructed according to nineteenth-century views and protocols, linking with new research on water and environment. It will also examine the domestic uses of water in relationship to hygienic and curing practices. The workshop will explore the medium of water as a source of disease and health in an international context, comparing East with West, with a specific focus on Western Europe and Asia. The theme of water has important connections with current debates on the relationship of water and its supply with health and wellbeing, particularly in developing countries. Venice, forming a passageway between East and West, has powerful associations with water, the basis of its wealth through trade and leisure, and more sinister associations with water and disease. It provides a perfect context for this workshop, and will be a convenient location for many of the participants. We will benefit too from the availability of the Palazzo Pesaro-Papafava to Warwick academics and from the funding opportunities offered by the University of Warwick. We anticipate that the workshop will result in an enduring and productive international network of scholars. Topics to be covered include: Concerns about the availability and purity of water supplies The construction of the relationship between water and disease Responses to water-borne epidemics Water as a focus of reform Water consumption and the politicization of water supply and usage The impact of improved domestic water supplies Water and healing practices and cultures The workshop will link closely to the our Wellcome Trust funded Project Grant, 'Healing Cultures, Medicine and the Therapeutic Uses of Water in the English Midlands, 1840-1948', and the organization of what we envisage as a high-impact workshop will strengthen our profile in this area of research, as well as highlighting the potential of a scholarly network based around the theme of water.