A pest house, pesthouse or fever shed was a type of building used for persons afflicted with communicable diseases such as tuberculosis, cholera, smallpox or typhus. Often used for forcible quarantine, many towns and cities had one or more pesthouses accompanied by a cemetery or a waste pond nearby for disposal of the dead.
Read more about Pest House: Fever Sheds in Canada
Famous quotes containing the words pest and/or house:
“The pest of society is egotists. There are dull and bright, sacred and profane, coarse and fine egotists. ‘Tis a disease that, like influenza, falls on all constitutions.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Instinct.—When our house burns down, we even forget our lunch.—Yes, but we go back to it later in the ashes.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)