Glimpses into Health, Disease, and Medical Institutions in Transylvania (19th–20th Centuries)

The online exhibition “Glimpses into Health, Disease, and Medical Institutions in Transylvania (19th–20th Centuries)”, presented as part of the conference Bridging Perspectives and Connecting Threads on Historical Health Inequalities (Cluj-Napoca, 11–13 May 2026), explores the medical history of modern Transylvania through archival documents, parish registers, hospital records, and personal archives. Through nine thematic chapters, the exhibition examines how people and authorities experienced, understood, and managed disease, death, and the transformation of medicine during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The chapters explore key aspects of health and disease in historical Transylvania and Cluj, including the cholera epidemic of 1872–1873, tuberculosis from the mid-19th to the early 20th century, violent deaths, malaria, syphilis, smallpox, midwives, midwifery, and the medicalization of childbirth, and the history of medical education in Cluj. Together, they offer insight into the relationship between society, disease, public health, and the emergence of modern medical institutions in a changing Transylvania.