Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIV.djvu/138

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130 QUARANTINE by the rightful heir within three months are delivered to the public administrator of the city of New York. All persons who have died are interred without delay in the quarantine burying ground at Seguin's point. A vessel has the right to put to sea before breaking bulk, in preference to going into quarantine ; but the health officer in such case indorses on her bill of health the circumstances under which she leaves port, the length of her detention, and her actual condition, and sends to the quaran- tine hospital such sick as may desire to remain. All passengers on board of vessels under quar- antine are provided for by the master of the vessel. Any person violating the quarantine regulations, or who shall oppose or obstruct the health officer or any of his employees in the performance of their duties, is guilty of misdemeanor and punishable by a fine of not less than $100, or by imprisonment not less than three nor more than six months, or by both such fine and imprisonment. Any person aggrieved by any decision of the health officer may appeal therefrom to the commissioners of quarantine, who constitute a board of appeal. On June 6, 1872, congress passed a joint reso- lution providing for a more effective system of quarantine on the southern and gulf coasts. Dr. Harvey E. Brown of the army, being de- tailed in obedience to the resolution, made a thorough report, on the strength of which a national quarantine was proposed, and " An act to prevent the introduction of contagious or infectious diseases into the United States " passed the house of representatives, but did not become a law. Quarantine in France, un- der the new organization of 1850, founded upon the departmental division, comprises two elements : the one, active and responsible, rep- resenting authority ; the other simply consul- tative, and representing the locality. The first is personified in an agent appointed directly by the minister, called director of health or prin- cipal agent, according as his duties are more or less circumscribed. The second is formed of a reunion of small functionaries and citizens taken from certain competent categories, and io particular from among the members of the council of hygiene and board of health. This organization is that of the large ports, which alone have a director and a special agent. In the others the service, reduced for economy to the strictest necessity, is done by secondary agents, principally employees of the custom house, who perform this service concurrently with their other functions. In India only limited measures have been taken to prevent the exportation of cholera. The " natives pas- senger act," promulgated by the government of India in 1858, only applies to the hygienic conditions and navigability of ships. The Dutch government, with a view to reducing the constantly increasing number of pilgrims who go from its possessions to Mecca, has es- tablished a regulation which may be beneficial in the future. Many intelligent scientific ob- QUARLES servers have not only suggested sweeping and radical reforms in quarantine, but have ques- tioned its utility and recommended its entire abrogation. In England, the general board of health, after close investigation, propose the entire discontinuance of quarantines, substitu- ting for them a strict code of international hy- gienic regulations, and they unhesitatingly as- sert that quarantines are no public security. The doctrine of a specific contagion, so univer- sally received when quarantines were first es- tablished, has lately undergone almost an en- tire revolution. Objections to new and more' comprehensive measures of protection on the part of the general government of the United States cannot now be raised, as in the days of Jefferson, who in 1804, in a communication to congress on the state of the Union, protested against the adoption of a code of laws to pre- vent the introduction of yellow fever. The conference at Constantinople, although estab- lishing the true principles of international hy- giene, was occupied exclusively with their ap- plication to cholera. It is proposed that any resolutions adopted by a future convention should have for their common end the preser- vation of the healthy individual, and be founded upon a different principle : to regulate the iso- lation and sequestration of the human species, and to systematize the destruction of animals. QUABLES. I. Frauds, an English author, born at Stewards, Essex, in 1592, died Sept. 8, 1644. He was educated at Christ's college, Cambridge, studied law at Lincoln's Inn, was cupbearer for a while to the queen of Bohemia, and in 1621 went to Dublin, where he became secretary to Bishop Usher. Returning to England after several years' absence, he was appointed chro- nologer to the city of London, and devoted him- self to literary labors until the rupture between the king and parliament, when his attachment to the royal cause plunged him into difficulties from which he never recovered. His best known writings are his " Divine Emblems " (1035) and "Enchiridion" (1641). The for- mer, imitated from the Pin Detideria of the Jesuit Herman Hugo, consists of symbolical pictures with short moral lessons in verse ; the latter is a collection of brief essays and apho- risms, in vigorous and occasionally eloquent lan- guage. Among his poetical works are : " Feast for Worms, or the History of Jonah " (1620) ; "Quintessence of Meditation" (1620); "Ar- galus and Parthenia" (1621); "History of Queen Esther;" an "Alphabet of Elegies" (1632), in memory of his friend Archdeacon Aylmer; "Hieroglyphics" (1638); "The Shepherd's Oracles" (1644); and "The Virgin Widow" (1649), a comedy. "The School of the Heart," attributed to him, is a translation of a Latin poem by Van Haeften of Antwerp, published anonymously in London in 1635. In most of these works he evinces strength of thought and considerable wit, but frequently becomes absurd and grotesque. His " Enchi- ridion " has been republished in Smith's " Li-