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During the spring wave of the coronavirus epidemic, many were somewhat skeptical about the effectiveness of adhering to the higher hygiene rules prescribed for the population. Then see a miracle where the distance was strictly respected, the handshakes and hugs were not observed, the use of masks stabilized, the number of daily hand washes increased, and the food was wiped with a sanitizing cloth, well, the number of infected people dropped dramatically within weeks. Of course, we are not inventing Spanish wax now either!
A study of Swedish historians shows the successful defense introduced by a man with a medical degree far ahead of his time on the island of Sardinia. The story begins in November 1582, when a sick sailor arrives from Marseille, who has been groaning a plague for a year, to the sleepy and dusty port city of Alghero, in the extreme northwest of the Italian island. By evading the epidemic, he reaches the city, where he dies in two days. And that sealed the fate of the town, the outbreak that took more than half of the locals. But it could have been much, much worse!
A medieval epidemiologist who denies his age takes the stage
The plague was a recurring epidemic from time to time in the Middle Ages. The hardest period, also called the Black Death, was in the 14th century. century, when about 50 million people died of plague in Europe and Asia. The prevailing belief at the time was that bad air, or bad evaporations, spread their discomfort, and amazing prevention methods were suggested, such as regularly washing with one’s urine. And the super Domestosa of the time, or the only disinfectant, was vinegar.
At that time, the city of Alghero was not really prepared for the epidemic. It was characterized by a few surgeries, a poor medical history, and even more a medical culture based on past practices. It was then that a local doctor in his fifties, Quinto Tiberio Angelerio, entered the scene.
. He was born into a local aristocracy and, having no medical training in Sardinia at the time, he continued his medical studies abroad. He arrived shortly before from Sicily, where in 1575 he had already survived a local plague. After being informed of the first two infected, he immediately wanted to quarantine them, but the city leaders rejected his request.
Desperate, Angelerio turned to the viceroy and explained, using Sicilian examples, what the city could expect in a short time if its instructions were not followed. The viceroy, who was at the doctor’s side immediately, could have been surprisingly enlightened. First, he ordered a complete shutdown, it was impossible to get in or out of town and food was hard to come by. A triple medical cordon was towed through the city. However, these measures enraged the locals, who first wanted to lynch Angelerio. Then, as the death toll increased, so did the number of those who actually demanded effective action. The city supported the doctor, which resulted in the epidemic ending 8 months later and there was not a single plague patient for the next 60 years.
But how was the much more serious epidemic on the island of Sardinia stopped in the Middle Ages?
Angelerio was the first to suggest that citizens lock themselves in their homes, not go out to visit their relatives and acquaintances. Events and entertainment were forbidden and only one person per household could go looking for food every day. The quarantine was already known in medieval Italy, since a relative who had symptoms of the disease and was admitted to a hospital, a contemporary hospital, could not leave his home for 40 days. Hence the word quarantine used in most languages, since Fourty days, means 40 days in Italian.
The medieval doctor to whose name the distance is attached.
Angelerio proved his foresight by introducing the two-meter rule. He ordered that all those who go out into the street do so only if they have a pole that is 2 meters long and they do not let others get closer to them than the tip of the pole.
It is known that during the first wave of the coronavirus in the spring, it was suggested everywhere that people keep a distance of 2 meters from each other. Later, in the United Kingdom, France, Singapore, Germany and South Korea, this distance was reduced to 1-1.5 meters. However, a 2020 study showed that those who maintain a distance of just one meter are 2 to 10 times more likely to be infected than those who stay within 2 meters. Historical science doesn’t know much about this ingenious contemporary insight elsewhere.
Angelerio He also ordered that in businesses where fruits, vegetables or other foods were sold, it be necessary to install wooden bars in front of the service counter, which would also help maintain distance. No handshake was suggested among the visitors to the Mass.
By the 16th century, medieval medicine had come to agree that disease spread through the air or evaporations, so people could also get sick if they caught objects that had the infection.
Angelerio also realized that the infection could be transmitted through close human contacts and contacts. Therefore, their guidelines include that houses should be disinfected regularly, walls should be whitewashed, washed, ventilated, and non-vital wood fixtures burned. Goods from abroad also began to be disinfected on board, and this was no different with the letters. The ship usually carried mail items over a fire, spinning in smoke in an attempt to disinfect.
Contemporary epidemiological hospitals
In Italy, due to the plagues of previous centuries, there was already some practice in the operation of epidemic hospitals. An infirmary was first erected in Venice in 1423. They were later created in all major cities because they facilitated the treatment of patients, to hold together the focal point of infection. It was no different in Alghero either. Angelerio’s description revealed that there was a surprisingly well-organized institution in the city, operating half as a hospital and half as a prison. The plague guard was tasked with overseeing who goes in and who goes out. Imported items and then exported items were listed in the same way. Compared with the standards of the time, the care was good and the poor of the city did not have to pay if they entered that place.
Well, as a result of all this, as I have already written in 8 months, the plague in the city settled. And a few years later, Dr. Angelerio published a brochure
Tightens the unhealthy state Algheriae Sardinia
which establishes in 57 rules how to successfully fight an epidemic. No plague patients were found in Sardinia for 60 years after closure. And when another epidemic came in 1652, Angelerio’s regulation was taken out and sealing, quarantine, disinfection of property and buildings, and the medical cordon were applied with as much success as in the previous century.
(Cover image: Representation of the bubonic plague in the Toggenberg Bible. Photo: Getty Images Hungary)
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