EPIDEMICS IN FORMER TIMES

New Zealand Tablet, 6 March 1919, Page 17

EPIDEMICS IN FORMER TIMES

QUARANTINE, ISOLATION, FUMIGATION KNOWN AND PRACTISED IN CATHOLIC - COUNTRIES.

Common usage (says Truth) has it that, whenever an epidemic like the recent one visits a city, a district, or a country, and when a Board of Health or a similar arm of the government issues measures for the prevention and combating of the particular disease, some newspaper scribe or public official will issue a statement something like this: “With the wonderful accomplishments of modern science, and with a public vastly superior intellectually to the people of former ages, we are convinced of our ability to gain control of the disease within a comparatively short time. We recommend the prohibition of gatherings of all kinds, because of the danger of communication of the disease, -which is greatest where crowds are present. We are confident that the public will observe the necessary rulings, will avoid gathering in crowds, will apply the best-known methods of prevention and cure and will stay at home as far as possible; we are far beyond the standards of those days when the people, startled by the havoc of an unknown disease, neglected the rudimentary demands of hygiene, and flocked to the churches or paraded the streets, flogging themselves, burning candles, and crying: ‘From the pestilence, deliver us, O Lord!’ ’ ’

We are not quoting from the document of any health official, but similar statements have been made in writing and on the platform and the Catholic people, and Catholic cities and countries of former times are the target of the insinuation of ignorance and alleged improper behaviour during the frightful visitation of an epidemic. And yet these allegations are'

fat from being correct. 1 A noted Austrian diplomat, who travelled from Italy to. Spain in 1519, relates that on this journey some , of the travellers desired to land at the island of Majorca. Having come from Naples, which was suspected of being infected with cholera, they were stopped from entering the harbor-town. They were, however, permitted to land at the end of the quai, and there to move about up to a line marked off by a stout rope. Here they could point from afar with sticks to the goods of the merchants and pedlars located there, and thus desginate" the objects they desired to purchase. Under the rope barrier stood a vessel, containing vinegar, into which the coins spent in payment were to be placed. Thereupon the goods purchased were pushed across the barrier by the merchants, who took the disinfected coins from the sterilising pot. Isolation of cases, disinfection of persons, articles of clothing, and other goods were well known, and prohibitions of import were always employed in former times to prevent or minimise contagion. When the plague invaded Milan in 1575, serious efforts were made to isolate those affected with the disease. Before each of the six gates a separate village was built, consisting of hundreds of small wooden houses, and here the sick, the suspects, and the convalescents were cared for. Moreover, these three groups were carefully separated, and strict separation of the sexes was observed also. In the midst of each village stood a crucifix and an altar, at which Mass was celebrated daily. Each of these towns had its own administration, which executed the regulations with just rigor. It seems also that, as early as the thirteenth century, efforts were made in Italian cities to combat contagious diseases by isolation, inasmuch as we read that the stricken were cared for in the market places, where they were nursed especially by the Franciscans. The assumption of obligatory notification of cases of contagion and coercion in isolating all cases in the market-place seems not altogether unwarranted. Disinfection and similar measures seem also to have been rigidly enforced in such critical times. We know that in the duchy of Franconia, in the eighteenth century, when news had come of the prevalence of the plague in Marseilles, strict precautions were ordered to be taken. A rigorous embargo was placed on the shipment into the country, of worn clothing, rags, . and hair, as possible carriers of the contagion. When the pestilence approached closer to the borders, more rigorous measures were employed. Only such travellers and goods were admitted as came from sections known to be free from the disease. Guards were placed on all the roads leading to the borders, and entrance through other than the regular avenues was penalised. Travellers were obliged under oath to state whether or not they had passed through infected districts. It was furthermore provided that any village or hamlet

stricken by the .scourge, -was to be, isolated, after a physician and priest had ' been assigned to duty within its walls. i

Fires, built in public places, were used in some countries at an early date to combat epidemics. Aromatic, herbs were burned in small fires in the houses; deodorants, including specially prepared fumigating candles or pastilles were used, and vinegar was utilised as a steriliser. Its value is still appreciated, though it cannot compare with our modern disinfectants. In the episcopal city of Mayence, during the epidemic of 16671668, the bed-straw used in houses visited by the plague was ordered to be burned. A quarantine of six weeks was prescribed and enforced on all inmates of dwellings thus afflicted, and the quarantine was not lifted for six weeks and not before the house had been fumigated. The preparation to be used for this purpose had to be purchased from the public apothecaries. In the latter city public burials and marriages were forbidden during the epidemic, and even religious processions were placed under the ban. Thus a procession planned by the pastor of the cathedral "of the city and the usual Pentecostal procession were prohibited. An exception seems to have been made in regard to two meetings only, one being the occasion of a solemn vow of the citizens, and the other tho laying of the cornerstone of the chapel of St. Sebastian.

From all of this it may readily be seen that certain effective measures of precaution and cure during epidemics were well known and practised by people in Catholic cities and countries at an early age. To pretend that the knowledge of these means is altogether modern, or that formerly people submitted passively with a sort of religious fatalism to such visitations is unjust and unscientific.