ON THE SMALL TOWNS’ HEALTH AND URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE IN THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY, SOUTHEAST EUROPE: THE CASE STUDY OF PITESTI, ROMANIA
ON THE SMALL TOWNS’ HEALTH AND URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE IN THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY, SOUTHEAST EUROPE: THE CASE STUDY OF PITESTI, ROMANIA

Summary/Abstract: The argument of this article is grounded in a critical analysis of a Report on the health and urban infrastructure of Pitesti, Romania, authored by the medical practitioner Ion Corsin in the early1900th. It contrasts the evidence claims in this report with other similar historical documents in order to understand differential access to health and urban infrastructure across the population. I found that the major conclusion of this report - that ethnic and religious minorities (the Jewish and Catholic population) enjoyed better living standards than the majority Orthodox population – stands partially true but requires analytical refinement. First, the Orthodox population subsumed the suburbanites and the Roma people who indeed suffered (much) poorer living conditions. Second, the town’s substantial Protestant minority seemed to have been subsumed into the Catholic group. However, these taxonomic inacurracies express the understandings of the time, of the author and the medical profession in particular and of the elite more broadly. The article contributes to a better understanding of the urban inequalities in the early 1900s Europe’s peripheral spaces.

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