Scourge in Barcelona. Outbreak of yellow fever (1821).

The outbreak of yellow fever that struck Barcelona in 1821 followed a typic al pattern for the limes: a brick from Cuba introduced the disease in the p ort docks; the epidemic first reached the poor suburbs, and finally the cen ter of the city It was assumed that at least 20,000 inhabitants died from t he scourge that is a sixth of the total population of the city estimated 12 0,000. French authorities promptly took emergency measures at land and mari time borders by locking French ports to Catalan vessels and defining a quar antine line along the Pyrenean border controlled by an army 15,000 strong. French medical team including six physicians and two nuns was sent to Barce lona to provide assistance. long after the epidemic had receded, the Pyrene an quarantine line was maintained by the French authorities for a hidden po litical purpose: Paris wished to contain Spanish Liberalism, a "revolutiona ry 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 ti me without reserve. This unexpected manifestation of nationalism was welcom ed and encouraged by the government of Louis XVIII who felt himself threate ned by the liberal opposition.