If you’re watching this video around the time it comes out, and maybe for months after
as well, then chances are, you’re currently stuck in your home.
Quarantined.
You’ve also probably heard this word more in the last few months than you have in your
entire life put together.
But what does “Quarantine” actually mean, and where does the word really come from?
Let’s take a break from epidemiology to instead study the etymology of this extremely
popular global buzzword, and get to the root cause of the word “Quarantine.”
If we’re going by the Merriam-Webster dictionary definitions of the word, the two you’re
probably more familiar with are “a restraint upon the activities or communication of persons
or the transport of goods designed to prevent the spread of disease or pests” and “a
state of enforced isolation.”
But these are actually only the third and fourth definitions of the word.
The first and second are “a period of 40 days” and “a term during which a ship
arriving in port and suspected of carrying contagious disease is held in isolation from
the shore.”
Probably not what you expected, right?
Let’s turn back time and explore these more esoteric definitions.
Like a lot of English words, quarantine was largely plagiarized from Western Europe – it’s
derived from the Latin word quadraginta and the Italian word quaranta, both of which mean
“forty.”
The actual act that the word “Quarantine” refers to has been in use since long before
the word ever came into prominence.
Even the Bible has references to the isolation of lepers in order to prevent the spread of
leprosy.
Prior to the 14th Century, when the term was coined, many cultures even had designating
areas for sequestering the sick.
In Venice, these were called lazarettos – named after Lazarus, the man Jesus was said to have
brought back from the dead, and also the Catholic Patron Saint of Lepers – and they were built
outside the city to keep the sick separate from the general population.
However, it was during history’s deadliest pandemic, the Black Death – which killed
around 200 million victims – that quarantine as a term came into use.
The Venetian-controlled port city of Ragusa – which is now Dubrovnik in modern Croatia
– implemented a plague-time policy known as Trentino.
Under Trentino, trade ships arriving from plague-infested areas were to be isolated
for a period of thirty days to see if the crew presented plague symptoms before letting
them mix with the general population.
Criminals who broke the law also faced thirty days isolation under Trentino.
This policy turned out to be quite successful, and over the next eighty years was also adopted
by Pisa, Marseilles, and a number of other cities.
During the next century of development, the period of isolation was moved from thirty
to forty days, meaning the name changed from Trentino to Quarantino, which was then anglicised
into “Quarantine.”
There’s a lot of speculation as to why they changed the number of days from thirty to
forty – some suggest it could be an extra safety precaution, others posit it might be
because of the religious significance of the number forty, like Christ’s Biblical forty
days fasting in the desert.
But like many aspects of history, it’s equally likely the change was purely arbitrary.
The enforcement of the Quarantino was often fickle and inconsistent, and often made exceptions
for the rich and influential, who could simply buy themselves out of isolation while the
poor bore the brunt of the law.
That may have been several hundred years ago, but really, some things never change.
Thanks for watching this bite-sized episode of the Infographics Show!
Wanna hear more perilous plague facts to get you through your Quarantino?
Why not check out “What Made The Black Death (The Plague) So Deadly?” and “Could the
Black Death (The Plague) Happen Again?”
In the meantime, stay safe, stay quarantined, and wash your hands!