18 MARCH 2020
The Origin Of The Word ‘Quarantine’
As countries around the world continued to shut down. .… ……and because necessity is the mother of invention….
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What does quarantine mean?
First Known Use: 14th Century
Etymology:
From the the Latin quadraginta and the Italian quaranta, both meaning “40.”
DEFINITION
Quarantine is a state or place of isolation for a person or animal who may have come in contact with contagious diseases. The period of isolation lowers the chance that person or animal could transfer illnesses to others.
Quarantine isn’t reserved for sick people only. People who appear healthy could spread a pathogen without ever knowing they were carriers, which is why travelers who appear healthy may still be quarantined, depending on where they are visiting from.
List of quarantinable diseases: cholera, diphtheria, infectious tuberculosis, plague, smallpox, yellow fever, viral hemorrhagic fevers (such as Marburg, Ebola, and Congo-Crimean), and severe acute respiratory syndromes.
History of Quarantine
The practice of quarantine, as we know it, began during the 14th century- Middle Ages- in an effort to protect coastal cities from plague epidemics. Ships arriving in Venice from infected ports were required to sit at anchor for 40 days before landing. This practice, called quarantine, was derived from the Italian words quaranta giorni which mean 40 days.
VISIT THE FOLLOWING LINK AND WATCH THE VIDEO TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT QUARANTINE
https://www.livescience.com/quarantine.html?jwsource=cl
From The Black Death, The Birth Of Quarantine
The origin of the word Quarantine dates back to mid-14th century Europe.
At the time, the bubonic plague, infamously known as the Black Death, was ripping through the continent. Starting in 1343, the disease wiped out an estimated one-third of Europe’s population during a particularly nasty period of three years between 1347-50. This sweep of the plague resulted in one of the biggest die-offs in human history—and it was an impetus to take action.
Officials in the Venetian-controlled port city of Ragusa (now Dubrovnik, Croatia) passed a law establishing trentino, or a 30-day period of isolation for ships arriving from plague-affected areas. No one from Ragusa was allowed to visit those ships under trentino, and if someone broke the law, they too would be isolated for the mandatory 30 days. The law caught on. Over the next 80 years, Marseilles, Pisa, and various other cities adopted similar measures.
Within a century, cities extended the isolation period from 30 to 40 days, and the term changed from trentino to quarantino—the root of the English word quarantine that we use today.
The very word quarantine is rooted in the Italian words quarantenara and quaranta giorni, or 40 days, the period of time that the city of Venice forced ship passengers and cargo to wait before landing in the 14th and 15th centuries to try to stave off the plague. Since then, quarantines have often generated tensions between protecting public health versus respecting individual rights.
Did you know?
When Shakespeare was quarantined because of the plague, he wrote King Lear.
Can You Be Forced Into Quarantine?
Are quarantines, including self-isolating at home, voluntary or mandatory?
Although quarantines are considered a measure of last resort, “police powers” give states, counties and even cities broad authority to impose them.
It is a bit of a gray area. It often seems voluntary until the person involved tries to leave, at which point health officials are likely to make it compulsory, experts said. The rules are notoriously hard to confirm because county governments often do not publish their regulations online.