The Port Health Service

The development of the Port Health Service is closely linked with the roif3story of shipping and seamen. The Adriatic Republic of Ragusa first introduc system of maritime quarantine in 1377. Seafarers suspected to be suffering 1 plague were isolated for 30 days at a place "distant from the harbour". This ^ time when bubonic plague was devastating Europe. History associates Venice the 40-day period, or quarantenaria, which, partly for astrological reasons, bec., accepted as the usual period of isolation for suspected seamen and seaborn merchafl Since the introduction of quarantine in the fourteenth century each civilized maf1. nation, in turn, introduced such a system. These national quarantine regulat!(i probably minimized, even if they could not entirely prevent, the entry of infect diseases. .f The first English quarantine regulations were drawn up in 1663 and provide^, the isolation of suspected ships and their crews for 40 days in the Thames estllt This did not, however, suffice to prevent the Great Plague of London which & (