The Forty Day Ledger of Ragusa

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]In Ragusa, now Dubrovnik, during the first plague [music] wave of 1377, a harbor captain kept a ledger of ships and symptoms.

[00:00:08]When the city ordered a 40-day linger, a priest and a barber surgeon argued commerce would suffer, yet lives would be saved.

[00:00:15]The ledger grew into a protocol that guided ports to bar ships and inspect [music] crews before entry.

[00:00:22]The 40-day silence became a ritual that quietly reshaped public health and kept fear at bay.

[00:00:28]Decades later, that paper trail [music] hints at a method modern epidemiology still echoes with gratitude.