YELLOW FEVER INSTITUTE. 



Treasury Department, Publio Health and Marine-Hospital Service, 

 WALTER WYMAN, Snrgeon-General. 



Bulletin No. 12. 



Section D.— QUARANTINE AND TREATMENT. Asst. Surg. Gen. W. J. PETTDS, Chairman of Section. 



THE EARLY HISTORY OF QUARANTINE-ORIGIN OF SANITARY MEASURES 

 DIRECTED AGAINST YELLOW FEVER. 



By P. A. Surg. J. M. Eager. 



XnEBRTTA-RY, 1903. 



The public sanitary measures included in the comprehensive term 

 "quarantine" have been more extensively applied in America against 

 yellow fever than against any other disease. Most of these measures 

 had their origin long before, yellow fever was known to the world. 

 The way they came into existence and how they were later used as a 

 protection against yellow fever is one of the most interesting topics 

 in sanitary history — one without which no account of the prophylaxis 

 of yellow fever would be complete. In the present writing the term 

 "quarantine" is not limited to its narrower sense, but is taken to mean 

 any restraint, owing to contagious disease, of intercourse on land or 

 by sea. It includes such incidental measures as disinfection. 



The history of quarantine is closely interwoven with that of medi- 

 cine in general and of shipping. We read of these practices being 

 applied against leprosy in biblical times, and Captain Cook, the Eng- 

 lish navigator, tells us that the savages of the South Sea Islands, who 

 had not advanced beyond the stone age at the time of his visit to those 

 islands, resorted to rade sanitary precautions in the case of arrivals 

 from neighboring places. 



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