[210]. Quarantine, or Quarantain, a French word signifying the space of forty days; why forty days should have been fixed upon as the period of probation upon these occasions is not very evident. Beckmann observes that it arose from the doctrine of the ancient physicians, in regard to the critical days of many diseases, of which the fortieth seems to have been considered the last, and most extreme, and on which many astrological conceits were formerly maintained. (See G. Wedelii Exercitatio de Quadragesima die, in his Centuria Exercitationum Medico-Philologicarum, Jenæ 1701.) This explanation however is not quite satisfactory; forty days appear to have been a period fixed upon for various kinds of probation, (probably from the duration of Lent); we have thus Quarantain of the King in France, which denotes a truce of forty days appointed by Saint Louis, during which time it was expressly forbidden to take any revenge of the relations or friends of people who had fought, wounded, or affronted each other in words. So again in the law of England, the word Quarantine denotes a benefit allowed to the widow of a man dying seized of land; by which she may challenge to continue in his capital messuage, or chief mansion house (so it be not a castle) for the space of forty days after his decease; during which time her dower shall be assigned. Coke upon Lit. 34, 35.
An account of the various establishments for preventing the plague in different countries, with a reference to the best writers, may be found in Schleswig Holstein schen Blattern fur Polizey und Cultur. 1800, 2 p. 341.
Legislative enactments for arresting the progress, and preventing the diffusion, of contagious diseases are mentioned in the earliest history: it is, for instance, commanded in the books of the law of Moses, that the priests shall be desired to visit houses infected with the plague of leprosy, which, if necessary, are to be closed, and even pulled down; or the walls are to be scraped and white-washed, and the infected persons to be shut up. (Leviticus, chap. xiii, xiv.) The laws of Quarantine, however, as directed against the propagation of Pestilential Epidemics have a later origin. In the first centuries of the Christian era, it does not appear to have been known that infection could be communicated by cloathing, and other things used by infected persons. After the plague in the fourteenth century, which continued longer than any other on record, and extended over the greater part of Europe, the survivors found that it was possible to guard against, or to prevent infection, and Governments then began to order establishments to be formed for that purpose. The most ancient of these appear to be those in Lombardy and Milan in the years 1374, 1383, 1399; an account of which may be seen in Muratori Scriptores rerum Italic: T. xvi, p. 560, & xviii p. 82, and from thence copied into Chenot, p. 147. See also Boccacio Decam. The Venetians are entitled to the merit of having improved the establishments formed to prevent infection, and that their example was followed in other countries is generally admitted. Muratori (Lib. i, cap. ii, p. 65) says that Quarantine was first ordered to be performed by the Venetians in 1484; and Howard (An Account of the principal Lazarettos; London, 1789, 4to p. 12) states that the College of Health was instituted in 1448—see Beckmann’s History of Inventions, vol. ii, p. 153—and Considerations on the Means of Preventing the communication of Pestilential contagion, by W. Brownrigg, London, 1771. On the Turkish frontiers the period of Quarantine was reduced to twenty days, under the Emperor Joseph II. See Martini Lange Rudimenta Doctrinæ de Peste.
[211]. For an interesting account of the rise and progress of this disease, see Sir A. Faulkner’s work already quoted.
[212]. Though no punishment is annexed by the Act to any offence against the Order of the King in Council, yet the disobedience of such an order founded on Act of Parliament, is an indictable offence, and punishable as a misdemeanor at common law; King against Harris, 4 T. R. 202, which was the case of a pilot who quitted a ship subject to Quarantine contrary to the established regulations.
[213]. This rule should be extended to vessels meeting at Sea.
[214]. The signal by day is a yellow flag of six breadths of bunting at the maintopmast-head, and if the vessel have not a clean bill of health, then the flag must have in it a black circular mark or ball, whose diameter must be equal to two breadths.
[215]. See also 59 Geo. 3. c. 41. which relates to infection in Ireland.
[216]. On Hereditary Disease, (Note 1, p. 46.)
[217]. The visitation of Lunatic Asylums and Mad-houses by Special Commissioners (see 14 Geo. 3, c. 49—Appendix 170) may be considered as a branch of Medical Police, for which see the subjects of Idiots and Lunatics in Part II.