Let’s talk about all this….
The history of isolating the sick can be traced all the way back to biblical times, when people
with leprosy were banished into isolation.
Now, you might think that banishment can be really effective, if not pretty cruel, but,
as the visibly sick are sent to die, the asymptotic still spread the virus (or the bacteria) inside
the city walls.
No matter what the bible makes you think, leprosy was relatively rare and it wasn't
until the 14th century and the rise of the Bubonic plague that humanity had to deal with
a large scale Pandemic.
Today, we know that The Plague was spread by bacteria carried by Rats and their fleas,
but at the time they knew nothing of Germ theory (see my videos on Bread and Milk for
more on that) - best they could guess was god was just angry at them.
The earliest tactic of dealing with the plague, was creating Cordon Solitaires, locking down
an infected or healthy city with armed guards at the entrance, allowing no one to cross
either way.
Both versions of a Cordon Solitaire are problematic.
If you lock down an infected city, you are ultimately just dooming the healthy inside
to become infected- and eventually infection gets out.
OR, you lock down a healthy city, the flow of goods and services is a challenge and any
infected that are turned away wander to nearby healthy cities dooming those people.
Add to this that nothing in history really changes, the Rich people (sick or not) can
always pay their way through a checkpoint, also someone will eventually use a lockdown
as a great excuse to be racist, Throwing whomever they don’t like into the infected pool.
By the 14th century, thanks to the Silk Road to the east, Italy was booming.
Unfortunately, even if the East was filled with spices, silks, tea, and noodles, it also
was where The Plague began, and ships were Rats' favorite places to hang (just after
the subway and The White House).
Thankfully, necessity is the mother of invention, and nothing can get in the way of Italians
and noodles…
So, in 1347, in the Venetian controlled port city of Ragusa (now Dubrovnik), which functioned
as a major hub of their trade to the east, they developed a way to keep trade moving,
while minimizing risk.
Upon arrival into a port, an infected ship would be required to fly a flag as they came
in, the Yellow Jack (which is still used today).
Flag or not, each captain would row to a checkpoint station, where he would be told before entering
the city, his ship, crew, and cargo would be assigned to one of three different nearby
islands for a period of 30 days, or in Italian, "Trentino."
This system would be so successful, that it would soon move on to Venice itself, where
they would build two castle-like island stations called "Lazarettos," named after Jesus's zombie
buddy Lazarus.
As time went on, Venice would add more disinfection tactics to this system, like fumigating ships
with the smoke of Juniper and Rosemary, continually running water over the goods for weeks on
end, washing hands with vinegar after handling people and items that may have been infected,
and in 1448, extending the length of isolation to 40 days, or in Italian, Quarantino… which
the English would later bastardize into the word Quarantine.
Why 40 Days?
Probably because of all the religious stuff?
Like it rained for 40 days and 40 nights during the whole Noah thing, Moses spent 40 days
up on Mount Sanai chatting with God, Jesus's desert bugout was 40 days…
Luckily, (or maybe someone was taking notes) the bubonic plague had a 37-day period from
infection to death.
So 40 days, not so bad.
In a quarantine you are restricting the movements of possible infected into smaller groups until
you can be sure they are clear, after which they can join the greater healthy whole.
Now this wasn't perfect and the rich could always pay their way out of quarantine (sound
familiar?
This will just keep coming up).
The Venetian Empire still had some bad waves of Plague….
Even still, while Europe as a whole lost 30-60% of the population, this system allowed Venice
to become the richest empire in history while this was happening - and the rest of Europe
took note.
Shakespeare, who would spend all of his mysterious life from 1564-1616 dealing with the plague
going in and out of isolation, was obsessed with Italy - six of his plays are set there.
He even mentions the Quarantine rules in Romeo & Juliet.
And remember, they had literally no idea that bacteria even existed, this was just a government
doing what it does best… using science to protect its people at whatever cost.
And this was not a temporary reaction to a disaster, it was a permanent, highly competent,
government-run, continuous monitoring effort which employed hundreds of people at a time.
And It would last until Napoleon's conquest of the region in 1787.
But despite Napoleon and his well-traveled penis (see my video), this system of island
new-arrival Quarantine would live on to be the basis of immigration centers like New
York's Ellis Island.
The word quarantine has continually evolved.
In 2020, even if we have a new Asian animal originating pandemic which rapidly spread
through Europe, you can still see whatever we are doing right now isn't exactly a “quarantine”
in the historical sense.
Incredibly, most of us are isolating ourselves for the greater good - we just all seem to
have settled on calling that Quarantine.
Still, it is clear that at the end of this, not only the word quarantine will be redefined,
but society as a whole as well.