Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 82.djvu/367

Rh Council of three nobles, who were directly charged with preventing the entry of epidemic disease. The Council constructed lazarettoes on two islands, and instituted a rigid inspection of incoming crews, and the letters of health from the place of departure. The time of detention was forty days (quarante diei), hence our term quarantine. Venice was therefore the first to practise systematic quarantine. Similar arrangements were adopted by other countries, and have developed into our modern institution of quarantine. The first quarantine disregarded humane and medical considerations, for the sake of commerce. The latest quarantine disregards commerce but only if it stands in the way of public health and real humanity.

Quarantine stations are maintained at forty-five points of entry into the United States, besides eight stations each in Hawaii, Porto Rico and the Philippines. The quarantine control of the Canal Zone is also exercised by the Public Health Service. A fully equipped quarantine station has adequate provision for boarding and inspecting vessels, apparatus for mechanically cleansing them, and suitable equipment for disinfection with steam, sulphur, formaldehyde and various solutions. It must include a clinical laboratory, hospitals for contagious and doubtful cases, a steam laundry, detention barracks for suspects, bathing facilities, a crematory, sufficient supply of good water and a proper system for the disposal of sewage.

Vessels from domestic ports are also subject to quarantine, if quarantinable disease prevails in the port of their departure, or if there is sickness on board. No persons other than quarantine and customs officers, and pilots, are permitted to board vessels subject to quarantine, until they have been given free pratique. In case a vessel carrying immigrants develops quarantinable disease in transit, after