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video from the @ChefGruel tweet of a health inspector doing a happy dance that she had shut down another business.
It reminds me of the novel "The Betrothed" by Manzoni about the plague in Milan. He describes the 17th century "health inspectors" (read on!)
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It reminds me of the novel "The Betrothed" by Manzoni about the plague in Milan. He describes the 17th century "health inspectors" (read on!)
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First the penalties were raised on everyone creating classes ("stations") for every part of society:
"The strictest orders were laid upon these people; the severest penalties threatened to them; stations were assigned them; and commissaries, as we have said, placed over them"
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"The strictest orders were laid upon these people; the severest penalties threatened to them; stations were assigned them; and commissaries, as we have said, placed over them"
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Then new power was placed in unelected officials to keep obedience:
"...magistrates and nobles were appointed in every district, with authority to enforce good government summarily on every opportunity."
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"...magistrates and nobles were appointed in every district, with authority to enforce good government summarily on every opportunity."
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No amount of science or reason could dissuade these from wielding power:
"...these officers came to be, as it were, exempted from all supervision; they constituted themselves, the Monatti especially, arbiters of everything. They entered the houses like masters, like enemies"
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"...these officers came to be, as it were, exempted from all supervision; they constituted themselves, the Monatti especially, arbiters of everything. They entered the houses like masters, like enemies"
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The profited from the plague. LA has shakedown agencies a-plenty:
"...not to mention their plunder, and how they treated the unhappy creatures reduced by the plague to pass through such hands threatening to drag them to the Lazzaretto, unless they were redeemed, with money."
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"...not to mention their plunder, and how they treated the unhappy creatures reduced by the plague to pass through such hands threatening to drag them to the Lazzaretto, unless they were redeemed, with money."
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They rejoiced in it!
"Other wretches, feigning to be Monatti, and carrying little bells tied to their feet, as these officers were required to do, to distinguish themselves and to give warning of their approach... and there exercised all kinds of tyranny."
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"Other wretches, feigning to be Monatti, and carrying little bells tied to their feet, as these officers were required to do, to distinguish themselves and to give warning of their approach... and there exercised all kinds of tyranny."
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Like today, the public message from the government was inconsistent & erratic:
"First, then, it was not the plague, absolutely not—by no means: the very utterance of the term was prohibited. Then, it was pestilential fevers: the idea was indirectly admitted in an adjective."
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"First, then, it was not the plague, absolutely not—by no means: the very utterance of the term was prohibited. Then, it was pestilential fevers: the idea was indirectly admitted in an adjective."
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"Then, it was not the true nor real plague; that is to say, it was the plague, but only in a certain sense; not positively and undoubtedly the plague, but something to which no other name could be affixed. Lastly, it was the plague without doubt, without dispute"
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And then witchcraft. I remind you that one NIH published "study" on masks called them useful "talisman"
"...but even then another idea was appended to it, the idea of poison and witchcraft, which altered and confounded that conveyed in the word they could no longer repress."
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"...but even then another idea was appended to it, the idea of poison and witchcraft, which altered and confounded that conveyed in the word they could no longer repress."
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Lastly, fear ginned up by the govt overflowed. It was thought that certain elements were purposely spreading the disease by washing (or "anointing") walls and benches with infested water. Everyone freaked out
"In the church of Sant’ Antonio, on the day of I know not what.."
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"In the church of Sant’ Antonio, on the day of I know not what.."
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"... an old man, more than eighty years of age, was observed, after kneeling in prayer, to sit down, first, however, dusting the bench with his cloak. "That old man is anointing the benches!’ exclaimed with one voice some women, who witnessed the act."
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"The people who happened... fell upon the old man; they tore his gray locks, heaped upon him blows and kicks, and dragged him out half dead, to convey him to prison, to the judges, to torture... I think he could not have survived many moments."
(Shades of mask-shaming)
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(Shades of mask-shaming)
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The equivalent run on the supermarkets for sanitizer ensued:
"The city, already tumultuously inclined, was now turned upside down: the owners of the houses, with lighted straw, burned the besmeared spots; and passers-by stopped, gazed, shuddered, murmured."
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"The city, already tumultuously inclined, was now turned upside down: the owners of the houses, with lighted straw, burned the besmeared spots; and passers-by stopped, gazed, shuddered, murmured."
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"Strangers, suspected of this alone, and at that time easily recognized by their dress, were arrested by the people in the streets, and consigned to prison. Here interrogations and examinations were made of captured, captors, and witnesses; no one was found guilty."
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Like the mayor of Tampa Bay promising to chase down anyone seen on camera without a mask:
"The Board of Health issued a proclamation, in which they promised reward and impunity to any one who would bring to light the author or authors of the deed."
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"The Board of Health issued a proclamation, in which they promised reward and impunity to any one who would bring to light the author or authors of the deed."
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The details from Manzoni's 19th century novel were taken directly from journals he studied from 17th Milan. He concludes this section of the narrative:
"The image of this supposed danger beset and tortured the minds of the people far more than the real and existing danger."
"The image of this supposed danger beset and tortured the minds of the people far more than the real and existing danger."
