18 



During all this period land quarantines were in operation at times of 

 pest. Offenses against quarantine, both land and maritime, were 

 severely punished. Pietro Follerio, a great Neapolitan jurisconsult 

 of the sixteenth century, mentions whipping, the mill, exile, and death 

 as penalties for infringement of sanitary regulations. A quarantine 

 proclamation and command made by Don Carlo d'Aragona imposes 

 rigorous punishment for surreptitiously entering the city of Palermo 

 during a prevalence of pest. Torture, long service in the galleys, and 

 work among the sick in a pest hospital are named among the penalties. 

 Even the nobles were subject to heavy fines and long imprisonment in 

 the castle. 



BILLS OF HEALTH. 



Sanitary bulletins were incident to quarantines and cordons. They 

 were so called because they were stamped with the " bollo" or seal of 

 the authority issuing them. When the system of sanitary bulletins was 

 fully developed these patients, in their connection with ships, were 

 designated as clean, when beyond suspicion; touched, when from a 

 noninfected place in active communication with infected places; sus- 

 picious, without sickness aboard, but having received goods from 

 places or from ships or caravans from places where pest prevailed; and 

 dirty, when from a place where disease existed. 



Professor Bo, a member of the council of health of Genoa, in mak- 

 ing researches relative to ordinances of sanitation proclaimed in 

 France in 1850, found an interesting document in the archives of the 

 " Gonservatori di Mare di Genoa," a body of officials to whom in 

 mediaeval times was confided the vigilance over public health. This 

 writing, dated 1300, makes mention of bulletins of health {bullettones 

 scmitatis) with which ships from the littoral of Corsica and Sardinia 

 were required to be provided. Prior to 1300 there is a record in a 

 rubric of the statutes of the city of Urbino, Italy, in which, referring 

 to precautions against pest, it is written that no person shall leave the 

 gate of the city without a proper bulletin, and that, to this end, watch 

 shall be kept day and night at the city gates and walls. During the 

 pest at Naples, in the year 1557, citizens, usually merchants, were 

 stationed at the gates of the city to examine bills of health. Cor- 

 ruption and lack of diligence on the part of these persons were pun- 

 ishable by death. Sentinels, some on foot and some on horseback, 

 made a patrol about the city walls to prevent clandestine entrance. 

 Bills of health to be acceptable had to be stamped with the seal of the 

 university of the. place from which the traveler came. They gave not 

 only the day but the hour of departure, together with a description of 

 the traveler. Sanitary bulletins were also issued to accompany mer- 

 chandise, but in times of severe pest all articles except aromatics and 

 medicaments were considered suspicious. The facts here given are 



