Quarantine, or Quarentaine. 1. By Magna Carta, the widow shall not be distrained to marry afresh, if she choose to live without a husband, but she shall not, however, marry against the consent of the Lord; and nothing shall be taken for assignment of her dower, but she shall remain in her husband's capital mansion-house for forty days after his death, during which time her dower shall be assigned. These forty days are called the widow's quarantine. Marriage during these forty days forfeits the dower. This right was enforced by writ of Quarantina habenda. See 1 Steph. Com.
2. A quantity of land containing forty perches, Leg. Hen. I., c. 16.
3. A regulation by which communication with persons, ships, or goods arriving from places infected with the plague, or other contagious disease, or liable thereto, is interdicted for a certain period. The term is derived from the Italian quaranta, forty; it being supposed, that if no infectious disease break out within forty days or six weeks, no further danger need be apprehended.
Quarantine regulations were embodied in the Quarantine Act, 1825, and kept up by the (English) Public Health Act, 1875, but the (English) Public Health Act, 1896, repealed the Act of 1825, and was amended by the (English) Public Health Act, 1904, 'to enable regulations to be made' by the Local Government Board (now the Ministry of Health) after consultation with the Board of Trade 'for carrying into effect conventions with respect to the prevention of danger arising to public health from vessels, and the prevention of the conveyance of infection by means of vessels.' Both these Acts are now repealed and replaced by the (English) Public Health Act, 1936, which sets up and incorporates Port Health Authorities which are to be established by order of the Minister of Health with jurisdiction over all waters within the area to which the order relates and the whole or part of the district of any riparian authority specified in the Order with any functions, rights, liabilities of a local authority under that or any unrepealed enactment contained in the (English) Public Health Acts, 1875 to 1932 (s. 3); by s. 4, port sanitary districts and authorities constituted under any Act passed before the Act of 1936 are to be known and styled Port Health Districts and Port Health Authorities. The first Schedule provides for medical officers of health and sanitary inspectors of Port Health Districts; see also s. 143, ibid.
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