Benedetto Viale Prelà (Bastia 1796 – Roma 1874) was an important physician of the Papal States in the mid-nineteenth century and chief in the medical staff of Pius IX. He practiced his profession in “Fool’s Hospital” in Rome, and attended to epidemic cholera in Ancona in 1837, studying the disease and healing the sick. This paper deals with the scientific studies and experiments of Benedetto Viale around the sulphurous waters (“Acque Albule”) of Tivoli Baths, known since the days of Roman Empire, quoted by poets like Virgil and Horace, and where strange incidents had occurred in the past.