[The "plague" of Barcelona. Yellow fever epidemic of 1821].
The outbreak of yellow fever that struck Barcelona in 1821 followed a typical pattern for the times: a brick from Cuba introduced the disease in the port docks; the epidemic first reached the poor suburbs, and finally the center of the city. It was assumed that at least 20,000 inhabitants died from the scourge, that is a sixth of the total population of the city estimated 120,000. French authorities promptly took emergency measures at land and maritime borders by locking French ports to Catalan vessels and defining a quarantine line along the Pyrenean border controlled by an army 15,000 strong. French medical team including six physicians and two nuns was sent to Barcelona to provide assistance. Long after the epidemic had receded, the Pyrenean quarantine line was maintained by the French authorities for a hidden political purpose: Paris wished to contain Spanish Liberalism, a "revolutionary pest". French troops engaged in the so-called quarantine line were used in 1823 for invading the Spanish kingdom, while French physicians returning to Paris were celebrated as heroes and benefactors of the mankind although they had not provided any serious contribution to the therapeutics or the epidemiology of yellow fever. They were glorified in publications of the time without reserve. This unexpected manifestation of nationalism was welcomed and encouraged by the government of Louis XVIII who felt himself threatened by the liberal opposition.
Chastel
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C
Laboratoire de virologie, Faculté de médecine, Brest, France.
D000533:Altruism; D004196:Disease Outbreaks / Q000266:history*; D005602:France; D049672:History, 19th Century; D006801:Humans; D010820:Physicians / Q000266:history; D011057:Politics; D011790:Quarantine / Q000266:history; D013030:Spain / Q000453:epidemiology; D015004:Yellow Fever / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000266:history*