Organized institutional responses to disease control began during the plague epidemic of 1347–1352 ( 6). Since the fourteenth century, quarantine has been the cornerstone of a coordinated disease-control strategy, including isolation, sanitary cordons, bills of health issued to ships, fumigation, disinfection, and regulation of groups of persons who were believed to be responsible for spreading the infection ( 4, 5). Quarantine (from the Italian “quaranta,” meaning 40) was adopted as an obligatory means of separating persons, animals, and goods that may have been exposed to a contagious disease.

Yet, a historical perspective of quarantine can contribute to a better understanding of its applications and can help trace the long roots of stigma and prejudice from the time of the Black Death and early outbreaks of cholera to the 1918 influenza pandemic ( 2) and to the first influenza pandemic of the twenty-first century, the 2009 influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 outbreak ( 3). The history of quarantine-not in its narrower sense, but in the larger sense of restraining the movement of persons or goods on land or sea because of a contagious disease-has not been given much attention by historians of public health.

To lessen the risk from these new and resurging threats to public health, authorities are again using quarantine as a strategy for limiting the spread of communicable diseases ( 1).

The risk for deadly infectious diseases with pandemic potential (e.g., severe acute respiratory syndrome ) is increasing worldwide, as is the risk for resurgence of long-standing infectious diseases (e.g., tuberculosis) and for acts of biological terrorism.

Disease Infected: Plague free