Ragusa Also Built the First Plague Hospital
Quarantine wasn’t the only tool in Europe’s ongoing battle with the plague, which would periodically ravage the continent well into the 17th century. Ragusa was also the first city to set up a temporary plague hospital on another island called Mljet. This new type of state-funded treatment facility would soon become known throughout Europe as a
lazaretto.
Stevens Crawshaw, who wrote a book about plague hospitals, says that the name lazaretto is a corruption of the word Nazaretto, the nickname for the lagoon island upon which Venice built its first permanent plague hospital, Santa Maria di Nazareth.
The lazaretto served two functions, as a medical treatment center and a quarantine facility. It was a way to compassionately care for both new arrivals and local citizens who fell sick with the plague while keeping them isolated from the healthy. At a
lazaretto, plague-infected patients would receive fresh food, clean bedding, and other health-promoting treatments, all paid for by the state.
“They’re quite a remarkable early public health structure into which the government has to invest huge sums of money,” says Stevens Crawshaw. “Regardless of whether there’s a plague in Venice, these hospitals are permanently manned, ready and waiting for incoming ships that may be suspected of carrying an infectious disease.”
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