Quarantine Time Machine

NEW! INSTALLMENT #9

INSTALLMENT #1

INSTALLMENT #2

ACTS OF ESTABLISHING AND REGULATING QUARANTINE [March 15, 1855]

The disastrous yellow fever epidemic of 1853 instigated the creation of the Sanitary Commission of New Orleans, which established a Board of Health composed of nine citizens “selected in reference to their known zeal in favor of a Quarantine system.”

The Board gave advice about drainage, sanitation, the distribution of smallpox vaccine and the collection of epidemiological data concerning climatology and mortality.

“To those familiar with its features, it will hardly be necessary to say that quarantine forms only a part of what the law contemplated as a system of health measures.... Relief and exemption for the future from these oft recurring desolations of pestilence was the great desideratum contemplated and demanded by the public…”

Dr. A. Forster Axson, State Health Officer, 1859

The Act mandated that any person found in violation of quarantine measures “shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by fine and imprisonment at the discretion of the court by which the offender shall be tried.”

SANITARY ORDINANCES during QUARANTINE: CONSUMER GOODS [June 25, 1879]

“No person shall sell, or offer for sale, in public or private any blown, stale, decaying, putrid, rotten or unwholesome meats, vegetables, fruits or tainted meats or fish or any impure or unsound food, or any drink liable to be injurious to health, or the flesh of any animal that has died of disease, or which was diseased when killed.”

“No person shall sell, or offer for sale, any poisonous drugs, medicines or chemicals, except on the prescription or written order of a physician; nor unless the receptacle or package containing such poisonous drug, medicine or chemical be marked "Poison "in plain and conspicuous characters.”

“All owners of premises and cistern builders, in the erection of cisterns for drinking and culinary purposes shall provide suitable covers for said cisterns, so as to exclude dust and other matters suspended in the atmosphere.“

“No person shall sell, or offer for sale, any unwholesome, watered or adulterated milk, or milk known as swill milk, or milk from cows fed on swill, garbage or other unhealthful matters, or any butter or cheese made from any such milk, or any unwholesome butter or cheese.”

INSTALLMENT #3

INSTALLMENT #4

INSTALLMENT #5

AN ACT TO DETAIN AND DISINFECT VESSELS [March 24, 1876]

During quarantine, the Board of Health selected a Resident Physician for the Port of New Orleans who’s duties included inspecting every vessel coming from any port and entering the mouth of the Mississippi river. “He shall require the captain of every vessel thus inspected to pay the following fees : For every ship, bark or sea-going steamer, the sum of twenty dollars, and fifteen for all other vessels.”

The Board of Health could, at its discretion, quarantine any or all vessels “from ports in which yellow fever usually prevails, or from ports where other contagious or infectious diseases are reported to exist” for the purpose of disinfection, fumigation and purification. After satisfactory detention, vessels were permitted to pass “without damage to the public health or risk of contagion.”

The Act further stated, “That every person who shall go on board of any vessel while performing quarantine, without the permission of the Resident Physician or his assistants, shall forfeit the sum of fifty dollars.”

INSTALLMENT #6

SANITARY ORDINANCES during QUARANTINE: ANIMALS [June 25, 1879]

“All slaughter-houses, dairies, stables and other places where animals are kept for any purpose whatever, shall be kept clean and wholesome by removal of all ordure, urine and other offensive matters, and by suitable cleansing as often as may be necessary.”

“All animals sick with any contagious or infectious disease shall be removed at once beyond the limits of the city of New Orleans by the person or persons owning or having charge of said animals, and in default of such action said animals may be removed by the Board of Health at the expense of such person or persons.”

“Whenever any horse, mule, cow or other animal shall die the keeper thereof shall have it forthwith removed to properly located and authorized factories to be disposed of for useful purposes under proper regulations, or bury such animal beyond the inhabited portion of the city limits, or cast the same into one of the boats moored to the nuisance wharves.”

“No person shall hereafter deposit or throw any dead animal, carrion or other offensive or unhealthy matter into the river, except at the points and in the manner designated by law.”

INSTALLMENT #7

SHRIMP ORDINANCE during QUARANTINE [June 15, 1880]

“Be it resolved by the Council of the city of New Orleans, That from and after the first day of May to the first day of October all stalls or stands where fresh crabs or shrimps are sold in the various markets of this city be required to be closed by 10 o'clock A. m. each and every day.”

“Be it further resolved, That the selling of fresh shrimps and crabs by peddlers upon the streets be forbidden under all circumstances during the months above stated.”

INSTALLMENT #8

SANITARY ORDINANCES during QUARANTINE: OFFENSIVE MATTER [June 25, 1879]

“All slaughter-houses, dairies, stables and other places where animals are kept for any purpose whatever, shall be kept clean and wholesome by removal of all ordure, urine and other offensive matters, and by suitable cleansing as often as may be necessary.”

“No person shall deposit or dump manure, offal or other foul and offensive matters on any lots, enclosure, open areas or streets; the City Council shall designate certain localities to be used as dumping grounds for such matters, or direct such matters to be burned, when practicable.”
“No person shall keep, throw or deposit any offal, filth, foul or offensive matter, corrupt or putrid matter, or any shells, hay, straw, kitchen stuff, paper, cloth, vegetable matter, or any substance whatever that may be offensive to smell, or injurious to health, or liable to become so, in any yard, lot, space or sidewalk, gutter, drain, or canal, or shall permit the same to be done or to remain”
"That ordinary refuse and sweepings from stores, dwelling-houses and other tenements, and kitchen offal, shall be deposited in tubs, boxes, barrels, or other suitable receptacles, and be placed on the outside of the banquettes, convenient for removal by the offal carts; such deposits shall be made not earlier than 3 o'clock a. m. nor later than 7 o'clock a. m.”

SANITARY ORDINANCES during QUARANTINE: PERSONS LIVING OR DEAD [June 25, 1879]

“No person shall impede or obstruct the flow of water in any gutter, canal, pipe or other conduit used for draining within the limits of New Orleans.

“No person shall commit a nuisance in any public street, square or other place whereby the purity of the atmosphere is liable to suffer.”

“No tomb, grave or vault containing any dead body shall be opened without permission, in writing, from the proper officers of the Board of Health, and no human body or remains thereof, within the jurisdiction of said board, shall be disinterred or disentombed without its written authority, or be removed from or brought within the limits of the city of New Orleans without such authority first obtained.”
“Parents shall inform principals of schools attended by their children of any contagious disease occurring in their families.”

ORDINANCE REGULATING THE SANITARY CONDITION OF HOTELS AND BOARDING-HOUSES [Revised 1870]

“Hereafter, any proprietor of any hotel or boarding-house kept in this city, and capable of accommodating more than seventy-five boarders or lodgers, shall keep a cart well covered and so constructed as to be capable of carrying off all the slops and offals from said hotels, as well as the sewerage from their water-closets and privies, without emitting any offensive odors”

“It shall be the duty of the proprietor of every such hotel or boarding-house to cause all such slops, offals and sewerage from their respective establishments to be removed in a cart...and emptied into the Mississippi river at the nuisance wharves of the city, every night, between the hours of 11 o'clock p. m. and 3 o'clock A. M.”
“Failure to do so every night, as above ordained, each and every proprietor so offending shall be liable to pay a fine of one hundred dollars, for the use of the city”

Sources: Louisiana., Jones, Joseph. (1880). Acts of the Legislature of Louisiana Establishing and Regulating Quarantine for the Protection of the State also, rules and regulations of the Board of Health of the state of Louisiana, and health ordinances of the city of New Orleans : collected and classified in accordance with resolution of the Board of Health of the state of Louisiana, September 2, 1880 . New Orleans : Rivers, stationer and printer

Louisiana., Louisiana. Board of Health., Atlanta convention of the South Atlantic and Gulf states New Orleans, L. (1899). The sanitary code. New Orleans: L. Graham & Son, ltd.