Lazzaretto

[pages 9–10] Theſe eſtabliſhments of Lazzarettos, under wiſe regulations, would have more than one good effect; for while they remove the great inquietude, which is occaſioned by our continual apprehenſions of the Plague, and ſave a populous kingdom, as well as other ſtates connected with us, (who are likewiſe endangered by the accidents of navigation and the imprudence of plunderers) they will ſecure the property of the trader from invaſion; they will alſo humanely aſſiſt the unfortunate, who may be wrecked upon the Britiſh Coaſt; and likewiſe, by promoting good order in a great trading ſtate, they will tend to civilize the ſavage diſpoſition of the plunderers, whoſe barbarity is a contradiction to that humanity, generoſity and good ſenſe, for which the Engliſh nation loves to be admired and diſtinguiſhed by foreigners. […] [page 20] The trip to Italy can be made in a very ſhort time, and at a ſmall expence; which indeed would not be worth mentioning, when compared with the great advantages that would result to the Britiſh nation, from an eſtabliſhment of a regular and well-governed Lazzaretto.

Passengers may perform quarantine on board if they choose, but it is not advisable to do so if they arrive by a merchant ship, as in that case the term is longer than for a person who goes into the lazzaretto; the day he enters the lazzaretto is reckoned as one, and pratique is given at the earliest hour of the day when the period expires. […] The best lazzarettos are those of Malta, Leghorn, Marseilles, Ancona, and Trieste.

When the Duke of Buckingham laid, as his heaviest anathema, upon the cur that snapped at his ducal fingers the wish that the brute “was married and settled in the country,” his grace evidently knew little of quarantine, or I ween the sentence of a banishment to Chowbent, or the depths of the New Forest, for the term of a life, would no doubt have been exchanged for a month’s residence in the lazzaretto of Alexandria, amid the flies and other Egyptian plagues, and perhaps during a Khamseen wind, bearing upon its hot breath clouds of sand, so subtle as to penetrate even the recesses of a watch, to say nothing of the parched and excoriated throat and blood-shot eyes of the traveller but lately landed from Beirout or Jaffa, and stricken, perhaps, with the fatal Syrian fever.[…]Among the many lazzarettos of the Mediterranean, that of Malta is, with regard to comfort, interior economy, and the civility of its officials, immeasurably superior to any other; and as a slight peep into the menâge of such an establishment may be a novelty to those who “live at home at ease,” I shall place my reader’s eye at the little hole in the showman’s box, and let him judge for himself.

Isolation hospitals were established for those sick with plague and the people they had had contact with; the burden of coping with plague victims was removed from hospitals and the administration of lazzarettos was assigned to the fraternity of the Misericordia under the auspices of the Ufficiali di Sanità.