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After the dramatic coronavirus outbreak at the end of 2019 in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, on 11 March 2020, a pandemic was declared by the WHO. Most countries worldwide imposed a quarantine or lockdown to their citizens, in an attempt to prevent uncontrolled infection from spreading. Historically, quarantine is the 40-day period of forced isolation to prevent the spread of an infectious disease. In this educational paper, a historical overview from the sacred temples of ancient Greece-the cradle of medicine-to modern hospitals, along with the conceive of healthcare systems, is provided. A few foods for thought as to the conflict between ethics in medicine and shortage of personnel and financial resources in the coronavirus disease 2019 era are offered as well., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2020. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

The record of the first cases of leprosy in Rio de Janeiro dates from the seventeenth century. The first local host of leprosy patients was created from 1741, and the first colonies hospitals were built in the early twentieth century, in order to avoid contagion of the population. The first structures dedicated to research also date from this time: the Leprosy International Institute, the Leprology Institute, and the Leprosy Laboratory of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, where the most prestigious leprologists of Rio de Janeiro worked. Currently, investigations are focused on the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation; additionally, leprosy patients are treated at municipal health centers and state hospitals, and former colony hospitals only accept patients with severe disabilities.

In recognition of the centenary of the Fontilles Sanitorium, we present some details of its history. The article discusses the foundation of the sanitorium by some of the numerous lepers with no health coverage in the region of Valencia, and Alicante in particular. After a difficult period between 1909 and 1932, the sanitorium was seized by the Republican government. After the civil war, it was returned to the board of trustees, who entrusted administrative tasks to the Compañía de Jesús while health care was overseen by the National Health Board. This coexistence was uneasy, and the board of trustees took over again in 1943. We comment on the transition from a sanitorium and colony into a hospital providing health care, research and training, and treatment with sulfones and subsequently other effective drugs. Also discussed are its role in the elimination of leprosy from Spain, admission to the International Federation of Antileprosy Associations in 1969, and its projects in endemic countries, with the ultimate goal of achieving a world free of leprosy.

This paper presents a new, only recently identified source on Saxon hospitals in the Middle Ages, a list, compiled between 1553 and 1586 under the government of elector August (1526-1586), of the districts and towns with hospitals for old and poor people, sickly persons, lepers, syphilitics and patients with other infectious diseases. Run by the towns or, partially, in connection with monasteries and churchs, by the court of Dresden too, these institutions provided lodging, nourishment, clothes and physical care to the indigent inmates. A medical therapy in a stricter sense was the exception in that s time.

Around the year 1000 many problems have been put throughout the beginning of urbanization, the increase of the country people, the pilgrimages and the spreading trade. The study of the medieval Charts allows to clarify how the sick were cured in the first hospitals-hôtels-Dieu- and how the lepers were isolated and kept outside the cities. When the recovery was impossible the intercession of saints was the only hope for the knight as well as for the peasants.

The Museum of History of Medicine preserves a polychromatic plastic model drawned to a scale of one to one hundred. This model shows an hospital in Rome where, in the Middle Ages, it used to hospitalize lepers. The buildings were placed extra pomerium in account of sanitary reasons. They were composed of a church, that still does exist, and of a leper house, that was destroyed in 1938. The leper house became part of the Santo Spirito in Saxia hospital just in the XVIII century.

All Hertfordshire's hospitals were small, although some had considerable endowments, e.g. St Julian's Hospital at St Albans. Most were in decline by the late 15th Century, or had ceased to function.