Where did the Ebola "Quarantine" come from?
Monday, October 20, 2014 at 10:09AM Did you know the 40-Day period that gave "Quarantine" its name may have had Biblical sources?
"The Ebola scare is thrusting some epidemiological lingo into the headlines. Take “quarantine,” the period during which a person is isolated to prevent the spread of an infectious disease.
NBC chief medical editor Nancy Snyderman is all too familiar with the word, having been widely criticized for violating a 21-day quarantine after a cameraman hired to work with her team contracted the Ebola virus. (The voluntary quarantine was changed to a mandatory one after Dr. Snyderman was reportedly spotted waiting for a takeout order at a restaurant near her home in Princeton, N.J.)
The original quarantine, dating back to the medieval era, actually lasted 40 days, and that history is embedded in the word itself. It comes to English from Old Italian “quarantina,” originally from “quadraginta,” the Latin word for the number 40.
In the 14th century, as the bubonic plague ravaged Europe, cities took extreme
measures to limit the epidemic. The Venetian colony of Ragusa (now Dubrovnik in Croatia) passed a law in 1377 establishing a 30-day isolation period, or “trentino,” for travelers from plague-ridden areas. But the length of time soon extended to 40 days as similar laws were passed in Italian port towns like Venice, Pisa and Genoa.
The 1665 "Plague Doctors" had black hats, coats and boots while wearing gloves and beaks filled
with herbs and spices to ward off bad spirits as they carried wood sticks to beat away infected patients. [They eerily look a lot like our 2014 Doctors in protective suits.]
Historians are unsure why 40 days became the standard European length for a quarantine, giving it its name. While the rationale was tied to observations for how long it took for infected people to die from the plague, it may have had more religious underpinnings.
Forty-day periods show up throughout the Old and New Testaments: from the length of the Great Flood, to Moses’ stay on Mount Sinai, to the time that Jesus spent fasting in the desert. The latter is commemorated in the 40 days of Lent, and the same time period has been used for other expressions of penance and asceticism.
In fact, the first known appearance of “quarantine” in English (from around 1470, according to the Oxford English Dictionary) refers to the place where Jesus is believed to have fasted. In the 16th century, it could mean the 40 days in which a widow was allowed to reside in her late husband’s house.
The use of “quarantine” for infectious diseases made it into English parlance by the time of the Great Plague of London in 1665. By the end of that London plague, over 100K died, 20% of London's population. In 2014, African nations have many "Voo-Doo" Witch Doctors practicing 17th century cures in defiance to modern scientific medicine which are tragically producing mortality outcomes like the 1665 Plague Doctors. Did you know that many African families are now paying medical workers to leave their dead relative's ebola-ridden body alone? So why? It's so that no one knows they died from ebola when health workers remove sealed shrouded corpses and the family is publicly shunned. Will that spread deadly ebola microorganisms even further too?
View the 4 minute video below on the 1665 Black Plague to compare it to the 2014 Ebola outbreak.
Time: 03:59
More recently, the term has come to refer to other kinds of isolation, such as the political isolation of a country by cutting off trade. That is how it was used in the run-up to World War II when Franklin D. Roosevelt sought to punish the Axis powers, and then again by John F. Kennedy during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
These days, a “quarantine” can also mean the isolation of computer data to keep it virus-free. But at least until the Ebola outbreak is contained, the old-fashioned medical meaning of the word is the one that will prevail."
Reader Comments (3)
Makes perfect sense. I am intrigued by the "40-Day" rule. I believe it basic. For instance, if you go on a weight lifting regime, or any kind of exercise regime, one must allow at least 6 weeks to start seeing results. Lent, many Biblical occurrences. Fascinating. I am a "40-Day" believer.
How much damage has been done to the economy in Africa so far and what is anticipated in the U.S.? If Obama cannot get it handled properly, he dooms the Democrat party hopes for any significant turnaround. even in the 2016 Presidential election. It's a game changing future for politics for Dems and that will last more years than a 40-day fast!
One thing I'm sure of is that this planet is ripe for a "cleansing". We have too many people in spite of the astonishing achievements we've made in science, medicine and technology, we still can't keep up with the mouths to feed, the barren areas that could have been cultivated and the basic, necessary hygiene some people still haven't access to! I think a pandemic is inevitable, it's certainly developing as the Black Plague did; a hit here, a hit there, another hit 5000 mi. away. Slowly the hits will connect and turn into direct pathways for the disease.