ABSTRACT
The practice of quarantine began during the fourteenth century in an effort to protect coastal cities from plague epidemics. Yellow-fever epidemics led to the passage of federal quarantine legislation by Congress in 1878 that created a role for the federal government in quarantine activities. In 1892 the law was reinterpreted to give the government more authority in imposing quarantine requirements because of cholera epidemics. The Public Health Service's Division of Global Migration and Quarantine is empowered to detain, medically examine, or conditionally release individuals and wildlife suspected of carrying a communicable disease. Under the concept of police powers, quarantine laws have been enacted to protect the public health, but they have had an adverse impact on the civil rights of some individuals. The evolution in the concept of civil liberties has significant implications for the quarantine procedure. Individual states may have a broad or limited regulatory framework for the use of quarantine.
