Aspecte privitoare la sistemul de carantină din Banat în secolul al XVIII-lea / Aspects of the quarantine system in Banat in the 18 th century

Abstract

Epidemics always posed a danger for the human communities. One of the most terrible and feared diseases was the plague. Confronted with this problem, the authorities of the XVIII-th century issued a set of directives to try to tackle this problem. Similar measures were taken to avoid the spread of zoonotic diseases. Unfortunately, in the XVIII-th century, there was still a large gap between the noble intentions of theoreticians or the directives of the authorities and the reality in the rural world, as the lives of the villagers would be negatively influenced by adverse weather conditions or the insufficient fertility of the soil. In turn, insufficient food and poor hygiene would make the inhabitants of the rural world more prone to the spread of epidemic diseases. In spite of this, the situation improved gradually during the XVIII-th century and later. However, the quarantine system of the military border, which extended along the frontier between the Habsburg and the Ottoman Empire, proved to be an efficient system to avoid the spread of the plague from the Ottoman provinces in the Habsburg monarchy and generally in Central and Western Europe. #is quarantine system had a clear set of rules, which had to be applied according to the geographical proximity and the level of danger posed by an outbreak of plague in the Ottoman Empire. Generally, the people who came from the Ottoman Empire had to stay for a certain period in quarantine and during this period their goods were washed and cleaned of any potential infection using different methods. #e punishments for those who tried to avoid this quarantine system were severe, ranging from prison to execution. Two documents from the county archives, presented in this study, allow for a better understanding of the concrete quarantine measures taken by the central and local authorities in different epidemiological situations.