Abstract

By studying the etiology and the causalities of the cholera breaking out in the German cities since the 1830s the young scientific discipline ‘Hygiene’ tried to influence urban administrations to prevent the contamination of the soil with human excrements. Most of the Hygienists followed the theory develloped by Max von Pettenkofer, the first German professor of Hygiene, that the soiling was the causing factor of most of the intestinal diseases. This theory based on the hypothesis of a prerequisite fermentation of a germ in the soil before beeing capable to produce disease in a susceptible individual. According to this ‐ never irrefutably proved ‐ theory the cities should be aware of the condition of soil (Bodenbeschaffenheit), whereas the pollution of the running water was not concidered to be dangerous by reason of the supposed self‐purification of running streams.