Epidemics, control and surveillance: from analogue quarantine to digital quarantine

Abstract

In this article, we analyze how the occurrence of epidemics of contagious diseases led political power and medical knowledge to the use of different techniques and mechanisms to deal with them, such as the installation of quarantines. We will see how the leprosy and plague epidemics and the current Covid-19 pandemic put different control and surveillance devices and techniques on those contaminated to use. The discovery that restricting movement and isolating the infected reduces the spread of contagious diseases was, and still is, one of the first medical recommendations in the event of an epidemic. In this sense, we will see how, from the old quarantines to the current quarantine, we intensify the surveillance over the bodies even more when we move from a control over the skin to a control under the skin.