Quarantines Used To Include The 'Pest House'

Hunt County Historical Commission chairman Carol Taylor discusses the existence in the 19th and earl 20th centuries of the "pest (for pestilence) house" in many communities, where people with highly contagious diseases were taken to be treated.  In her blog, she writes about a pest house in Virginia where the mortality rate decreased from 50 percent to 5 percent.  Greenville had a pest house where wealthy businessman Tom King went to recover from smallpox.