I presidi per la lotta alla tubercolosi realizzati negli anni ’30: il caso del Sanatorio “Antonio Galateo” a Lecce

In the years immediately after the First World War, the Italian government was forced to deal with the enormous problem of the spread of tuberculosis and in this context issued, in 1919, a law aimed at helping the creation of hospital-sanatorial facilities for those suffering from consumption, converting a previous Royal Decree of 1917. If this measure can be considered the beginning of the sanatorial policy in Italy, certainly the law of 1927 on the establishment of anti-tubercular Consortia and the Royal Decree of the same year, which made compulsory insurance against tuberculosis, were a new incentive to the fight against this disease. The construction of the structures necessary for the creation of a national sanatorium network, which provided for the construction of 20,000 beds distributed throughout the country within 10 years, was entrusted to the National Social Insurance Fund and as medical consultant was called to collaborate with the young and brilliant tisiologist Eugenio Morelli. In this context, guidelines were drawn up for the construction of sanatoriums and standard projects were prepared to be replicated throughout the country. The construction of the Antonio Galateo Sanatorium in Lecce between 1932 and 1934, which is the subject of the study presented in this paper, is based on these guidelines. The sanatorium, ceased the original function, has been over time used for different purposes until 1998 when it is finally dismissed and abandoned. After several attempts to recover the structure, only in 2020 was published a call for competition for the design of its redevelopment. This initiative could become an example for the preservation of similar structures in Italy that represent elements of a national network of buildings that were created to respond to an emergency, when this ceased to exist, they were abandoned, but still constitute a memory of the health and construction history of our country.