5. Quarantine Ships (Lazarettos)
In an early form of disease control, Venetian authorities established lazarettos—isolation stations for ships and travelers. Anyone arriving from plague-stricken areas was required to remain isolated for forty days, a period that gave rise to the word quarantine (from the Italian “quaranta,” meaning forty). While not a perfect system, this practice did slow the spread of the plague and laid the groundwork for modern quarantine measures. Learn more about the history of quarantine
