Contagious diseases kept returning: after the plague came cholera (1832, 1849 and 1866, when 70 people died), typhus (1839) and smallpox (1870 and 1903). The marshes of the Woluwe valley played a part; on the plateau of Diegem-Lo people were less affected. In 1845-1846 the potato blight also brought famine.
After the cholera of 1866 the municipal council thanked doctor Jan Frans Lammens, who had been on his feet day and night, curate Verwilt, who visited the sick from house to house, Jan Dehase, who made his farm available as a free hospital, and the Sisters of Saint Vincent de Paul. Of the 43 patients in the hospital, 21 died; Sister Martha fell ill at three in the morning on 24 September and died the same evening.
Doctors and midwives
In 1651 the surgeon Gerardus Elseviers cared for the poor. In the 19th century the municipality kept appointing a doctor for the poor, such as the homeopath Carolus Rayé of Vilvoorde (1836) and Joannes Muller (1840), who was required to live in Diegem. In the first half of the century Doctor Jan Frans De Smedt visited many villages and treated an average of 35 patients a day at home. After him came Lammens and Eugène Van der Aa; from 1905 there were two doctors, Vloebergh and De Mortier, and in 1942 a third, Vande Poel. Midwives are mentioned from 1683; older people in Diegem long remembered Isabella Moyson, known as ‘Dikke Belle’ (Fat Belle).
Doctor Van der Aa
Eugène Van der Aa, born in Beringen in 1844, had as a student in Leuven helped set up a field hospital for the wounded of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. In 1871 he settled in Diegem. He founded a drama club, joined the municipal council to defend the schools and was mayor from 1883 until his death in 1906. He built the street from the village to the station, which bears his name, the Kasteelstraat, public lighting and a sewer under the Haachtsesteenweg. Some 3,000 people attended his funeral in February 1906.
Hygiene
The parish archive holds an 18th-century recipe for a potpourri of roses, jasmine, thyme, rosemary and lavender, meant to keep away insects and foul smells. In 1900 the aldermen advised the inhabitants to whitewash their houses, clean the drains and kill rats. From 1930 the municipality collected household refuse with a horse and cart; the horse was stabled behind the town hall. In 1932 the Kinderheil Sint-Anna, a clinic for infants, was started by Maria Boulanger-Couder.