Bills of health, however,
were not general until the year 1665.
The appointment of a forty days' detention, whence quarantines
derive their name, was not dictated by caprice, but probably had a
medical origin, which is derivable in part from the doctrine of
critical days; for the fortieth day, according to the most ancient
notions, has been always regarded as the last of ardent diseases,
and the limit of separation between these and those which are
chronic. It was the custom to subject lying-in women for forty
days to a more exact superintendence. There was a good deal also
said in medical works of forty-day epochs in the formation of the
foetus, not to mention that the alchemists expected more durable
revolutions in forty days, which period they called the
philosophical month.
This period being generally held to prevail in natural processes,
it appeared reasonable to assume, and legally to establish it, as
that required for the development of latent principles of
contagion, since public regulations cannot dispense with decisions
of this kind, even though they should not be wholly justified by
the nature of the case. Great stress has likewise been laid on
theological and legal grounds, which were certainly of greater
weight in the fifteenth century than in the modern times.
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