1/n India is now locked down for 40 days, a number that has an interesting history in global pandemics. Between 1345 and 1360, bubonic plague devastated Europe. The city of Dubrovnik, under Venetian rule, was the first to make ships sit in anchor for quaranta giorni or 40 days.

2/n This practice of isolation for 40 days to save the Venetian Republic gave us our word quarantine. However, these measures were too little too late. Plague still took hold in the region’s rich lagoon communities, killing some 100,000 people in the Venetian Republic alone.

3/n Eventually, when the plague subsided the quarantine period was reduced to 30 days, but the original term quaranta giorni stuck.

4/n The idea of quarantine, however, is older. It can be traced to the book of Leviticus which tells of how to quarantine people with leprosy. Hippocrates too covered the issue in a three-volume set on epidemics. nnnn