Vers une nouvelle modernité sanitaire: L'épidémie de peste de majorque en 1820

The aim of this paper is to present the outbreak of plague occurred in Mallorca from May to December 1820. The significance of this episode must be understood in the double context in which it occurred: the impact on the Majorcan society and its relationship with new health proposals in a period of change both the way the state began to get involved in the management of public health, and the development of new paradigms in the field of medicine. We try the following topics: features of its evolution, analysis of the controversies that were generated on the nature of the disease, description of health policies undertaken to stop its expansion, and its impact outside the island. The information used comes from three sources: the writings of the doctors who were involved in the epidemic, the press of the time (Palma and Barcelona). The correspondence of the French consular representatives in the Balearic islands (Archives du Ministère des Affaires étrangè-res-Foreign Office, La Courneuve, France). We consider this plague as a starting point to develop in Majorca a modern public health policy, some years before what the historians point out to cholera for the rest of Europe.