Quarantine as a method of preventing the spread of disease is an ancient phenomenon. Early quarantines are described in the Old Testament Book of Leviticus, as well as in the writings of Hippocrates.
The word itself is Venetian, derived from quaranta giorni (40 days). The ships staying in Venice had to drop anchor outside the harbor, so as not to bring the plague into the city, and stay for forty days. The island next to which they were located was four kilometers from Venice and was called Lazaretto. Its name also remained in the history of medicine. On the forty-first day, a special commission of doctors rose on the decks and decided whether the ship could dock in St. Mark's Bay.
Lazaretto Island, Venice. Aerial photography.
The fate of those sailors who showed signs of illness was difficult. Doctors refused to treat them for fear of contracting the disease. They were buried on the same island of Lazaretto.
The measures taken by Venice were successful and many European cities repeated the experience. Quarantine violators were treated cruelly. For example, in Geneva, they were burned along with the smuggled goods. In many cities, residents were forbidden to leave their territory, they could not be allowed back. A remarkable example of this is the city of Eyam in Derbyshire, which voluntarily isolated itself during the outbreak of the plague in 1666.
In the Middle Ages, the authorities created special colonies for lepers. The causative agent of the disease was discovered only in 1873, but people were afraid of its terrible and incurable nature, as well as the fact that it is transmitted through the air.
Plague first penetrated Europe in 1347 and changed human civilization forever. In four years, the disease took with it, according to rough estimates, from 50 million people in Europe and up to 200 million worldwide.
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In 1377, the seaport at Ragusa imposed restrictions on arriving ships. The ships had to stay offshore for 30 days before disembarking. Any person on board after this period, who was found to be healthy, was considered safe and he was allowed to go ashore. Then the quarantines were extended to forty days.
In the 19th century, quarantines began to be used as a means of political struggle. As a result, the diplomats came to the conclusion that standardized rules need to be created, and they discussed this at special conferences. The United States has had epidemics since 1793, when yellow fever spread to Philadelphia. Outbreaks of the disease have forced Congress to pass special laws.
Fencing the streets quarantined in Queensland during the 1900 plague epidemic.
The most famous quarantine in US history is the story of Mary Mallon, aka Typhoid Mary. This woman, who lived in the early 20th century, was a carrier of typhoid fever. Moreover, she herself was not sick and did not feel any signs. Nevertheless, Mary spread typhus among the families in which she worked as a cook. Authorities have quarantined Mary on an island in New York. She lived there for three years and promised never to return to the profession of a cook. But she could not keep her promise and continued to infect people. She was returned to the island again for the rest of her life.
Some of the quarantines had their positive side. For example, in 1830 A. S. Pushkin arrived for a month at his estate Boldino in the Nizhny Novgorod province, but due to an epidemic of cholera he stayed there for three. It was this period that became one of the most fruitful. In Boldino, the poet completed Eugene Onegin, Little Tragedies, Belkin's Tale, poems and poems.
Pavel Romanutenko