Well, The history of the word "quarantine" is fascinating! (A mini Thread)

The word comes from Latin & #39;quadraginta& #39; and the Italian & #39;quaranta& #39;, both meaning “40.”

Why 40?

We will have to go back to the mid 1300s when the bubonic plague was ripping through Europe.

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Starting in 1343, the disease wiped out an estimated one-third of Europe’s population during a particularly nasty period of three years between 1347-50. This sweep of the plague resulted in one of the biggest die-offs in human history — and it was an impetus to take action.

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Officials at the port city of Ragusa passed a law establishing trentino, or a 30-day period of isolation for ships arriving from plague-affected areas. No one was allowed to visit those ships under trentino, and if someone broke the law, they too would be isolated.

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The law caught on. Over the next 80 years, various other cities adopted similar measures. Within a century, cities extended the isolation period from 30 to 40 days, and the term changed from trentino to quarantino — the root of the English word quarantine that we use today.
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