A must-read history of quarantine, its future – technological – and why public health is meaningless unless we consider ourselves part of a public
- The earliest quarantine facilities were not unlike medical prisons, but the future of isolation to prevent disease spreading will rely on technology
- So say Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley in their compelling history of quarantine. They emphasise how much it relies on there being a sense of civic duty
Until Proven Safe: The History and Future of Quarantine by Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley, pub. MCD
Carved into sandstone at a 19th century former maritime quarantine station in Australia is a distressed message in Chinese that should resonate with millions of people around the world unlucky enough to have crossed paths with Covid-19.
“Fearful of contagion,” reads the inscription, by Xie Ping De of He county, Anhui province. “A burst of grief so unbearable that it is inexpressible […] My friends, this is not a place of pleasure.”
Now a converted spa-hotel with a museum and a sideline in ghost tours, Sydney’s Q Station provided R&R in 2009 for journalists Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley (co-host of the long-running Gastropod food podcast). It also offered the couple the germ of an idea for one of this year’s must-read books.
The pair consider how quarantine – derived from the Italian quarantina for the 40-day period once believed to be the turning point for disease – developed into a ubiquitous practice to halt contagion not only among humans. They show how it has been used to keep plants and animals safe (although incineration and extermination are often the solution); keep space exploration free of contamination; and keep nuclear waste in “a strange kind of purgatory”.