15 



MARITIME QUARANTINE. 



Maritime quarantine originated in connection with the Levantine 

 trade. Its early history is associated with that of shipping in the 

 Mediterranean, especially with that of the traffic of Venice, Genoa, 

 and Marseille. Although commercial activity in these waters was 

 initiated by the Phoenicians, the maritime pioneers, records of disease 

 introduced by sea are not found bearing earlier date than the period 

 when Roman navigation was well established. As has been seen, the 

 practice of isolation was first applied against communicable disease by 

 the Hebrews, but their lazarettoes, it appears, were little used in con- 

 nection with foreign trade, leaving out of the question commerce by 

 sea. In the exchange of commodities with foreign countries the 

 Hebrews were largely dependent on the Phoenicians and Arabs. Had 

 the Jews been active in outside commerce, we should probably read in 

 the Old Testament of sanitaiy laws applicable to caravans and vessels. 



As has been already mentioned, Pliny implies that leprosy was 

 introduced into Europe by Pompey on his triumphal return from the 

 East. It is altogether probable that the Roman ships, laden with spoil 

 from Syria, and bringing many prisoners of war to Italy, carried in 

 leprosy. 



In connection with the question of the first recorded introduction of 

 disease by sea a curious, error has entered into writings on the subject. 

 J. Freind, adducing evidence in his History of Medicine that Procopius 

 was a physician, quotes a translation of Procopius's works by Dr. 

 Howel, and says that the great Byzantine historian describes the pest 

 at Constantinople (A. D. 534) as having originated at Pelusium, in 

 Egypt. This is indeed what Procopius wrote. But it happens that 

 later writers — evidently reading Freind's history — say that Procopius 

 states the epidemic in question was carried to Constantinople by ships 

 and that this invasion of disease became later the foundation of the 

 quarantine establishments on the Mediterranean coast. It is, how- 

 ever, true that the Italian epidemics of the sixth century began in the 

 maritime towns and thence spread inland; but it does not follow that 

 the writers of the time considered the intervention of ships essential 

 to the introduction of disease by sea. For example, Francesco Alfano, 

 professor of medicine at the University of Salerno, which in those 

 days was reputed to be the greatest medical school in the world, 

 writing in 1577, says that the corrupt air capable of introducing pest 

 may be blown over sea and land for long distances; otherwise how 

 could it be explained, he asks, that pest was transported from Ethiopia 

 to Athens and to all Attica? ' It was considered, moreover, that a ship 

 might easily be pestridden. Even by going to sea a vessel with all 

 well aboard at the time of departure could not always escape the 



