QUARANTINE 451 



detaining of the passengers and goods on board the ship 

 until the health officials are satisfied that no infectious 

 diseases are being brought into the country. In the case 

 of a house, quarantine means the preventing of persons 

 from going into the house, or more especially from leaving 

 the house, for fear that they may carry disease to the 

 community. Quarantine means "forty," and comes from 

 the fact that governments of former times, not knowing 

 the incubation periods of germs, nor the time during 

 which infections were possible, detained suspected trav- 

 elers and goods for 40 days before admitting them into a 

 country. 



Do we really understand what we have learned about 

 the spreading of disease by germs? If we do, we shall see 

 at once how valuable and how necessary it is for a city to 

 be able to quarantine persons suffering from dangerous 

 diseases. We shall also be able to see the value of isola- 

 tion even when it causes us personally great inconvenience. 

 Suppose that we have smallpox, or that a member of our 

 family has it ; we ought still to realize that the community 

 has a right to demand of us that we prevent the disease, 

 by all the means in our power, from spreading to those 

 about us. If we are recovering from scarlet fever, we 

 know we ought not to go to school, nor to mingle with 

 other people, until we are absolutely certain that the last 

 of the "scaling" is over. We also know that articles 

 such as milk bottles should not be taken away from a 

 house that is quarantined ; they may be infected. By the 

 mingling of infected milk bottles with those going to other 

 houses, a whole neighborhood may be stricken. Sanitary 

 experts say that milk bottles should not be left at an in- 



