Daily AncestorQuarantine
Quarantine was the holding of ships and passengers at a port until health officers judged them free of contagious disease such as cholera or yellow fever.
The word comes from the Italian for 40 days, the time Venice made ships from plague ports wait. In the U.S., cities and states ran quarantine at first; federal laws of 1878 and 1893 widened the national role, and by 1921 every station was federal.
Arriving immigrants met health officers before immigration inspectors. At Angel Island, for example, each newcomer had a medical exam at the station hospital, and a person found with certain diseases could not enter.
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Daily Ancestor. "Quarantine." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/immigration/quarantine. Last checked 2026-10-03.