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and Italian, quarantina^ from the Latin, quadragintay indicating the period of forty days of detention originally imposed upon vessels suspected of being infected with malignant disease. A quarantine law may be defined as a regulation interdicting for a certain period communication with persons or property arriving from places con- sidered to be either infected with contagious disease, or danger- ously liable to such infection. Such laws usually provide for the examination of the individuals and property detained in quaran- tine, the isolation of patients having the disease, and such disin- fection as the examining officers deem necessary. The expenses of maintaining the quarantine are defrayed by fees collected for the purpose from the owners of the property, usually of the ships, so detained. While in its inception, and still, for the most part con- fined in operation to maritime transportation, quarantining by in- land cities against places in the interior, as well as on the coast, has been quite common in the United States during seasons of epidemic. More serious questions are likely to arise from land than from sea quarantines, for in the former case more stringent regulations are usually necessary. It is said that the earliest systematic quaran- tine regulations were instituted by the Venetians, in the year 1484, to guard against the plague. Systematic quarantine was not en- forced in England before 1720.^ Perhaps the first in this country was that of New York, established in 1784, thus antedating the Federal Constitution by five years.
The establishment of quarantines came inevitably with the ex- tension of trade, and we may expect the questions connected with them to become more important with the growth of commerce. An inquiry into the constitutional limitations of quarantine regu- lations is given serious, practical interest by the gross abuses of the right which have occurred during popular panics incident to epidemics. For example, on account of a single suspected case of yellow fever in New Orleans, Galveston has suspended all in- tercourse by water between the two cities. In some cases, even the passing through of trains from infected points has been for- bidden, with the harrowing result of preventing the escape of the imprisoned inhabitants to latitudes of safety. Quarantines have been frequently resorted to as reprisals, for purposes of commer- cial retaliation. On this ground cities gravely infected have de-
^ McCullocb's G^mmercial Dictionary, art. Quarantine.
