Some contemporaries realised that the only remedy for plague was to run away from it – Boccaccio’s Decameron is a series of tales told among a group of young people taking refuge from the Black Death outside Florence.

The Black Death, also known as the Pestilence and the Great Mortality, was the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, resulting in the deaths of up to 75–200 million people in Eurasia and North Africa, peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351. Believing they faced near-certain death if they remained but could cause the death of thousands if they left, the residents of Eyam agreed. The Black Death began spreading in Europe in 1347 and in a matter of four years, had killed approximately 200 million people. In 1793, yellow fever hit Philadelphia, and sailors were quarantined in a hospital outside the city.
With this new quarantine effort in the news, we offer a look at quarantine use — and abuse — over the ages. The term 'quarantine' was first coined during the time of the Black Death, also known as The Great Bubonic Plague, which was the beginning of the centuries-long bubonic plague pandemic. Black Death—The Invention of Quarantine A couple suffering from the blisters of the Black Death, the bubonic plague that swept through Europe in the Middle Ages. Planet Earth Venice’s Black Death and the Dawn of Quarantine Archaeological research is unearthing Venice’s quarantine history to illuminate how the Italian city created a vast public health response 700 years ago and helped lay the modern foundation for coping with pandemics. The Black Death hit Europe from 1346 to 1353 and gave us the word “quarantine.” Ragusa (modern Dubrovnik, Croatia) was the first city known to establish quarantine for all ships wishing to land at their port. When typhus landed in New York City in 1892, at least 70 people were quarantined on a nearby island. My husband, he is one of the few remaining men to bury the dead and I worry that soon I'll be left alone. The practice of quarantine being used today developed nearly 500 years ago in Venice as the city attempted to protect itself from the plague.

How the Black Death in Italy Brought You the Modern-Day Coronavirus Quarantine. Everyone in my community is collapsing to the ground and dying painfully. Medieval people believed that the Black Death came from God, and so responded with prayers and processions. A quarantine cordon was established with a … First Known Use: 14th Century Etymology: From the the Latin quadraginta and the Italian quaranta, both meaning “40.” From The Black Death, The Birth Of Quarantine. Ragusa required ships to spend 30 days on that rocky island off the coast—Mrkan. The quarantine system was fully nationalized by 1921 when administration of the last quarantine station was transferred to the U.S. government. Public Health Service Act The Public Health Service Act External external icon of 1944 clearly established the federal government’s quarantine authority for the first time.