[Judith Anne]

I certainly agree that quarantine would have been helpful in the very early stages.

What really bothers me is that back when syphillis was infecting 20% of all Americans, there was a 3 day waiting period (at least in my state) before a marriage license could be issued, so that both partners could be tested for what was, before penicillin, the equivalent to HIV (*yes, I know that some people were apparently immune to syph, some recovered from initial infection and never had a further problem, and some died from it*)--and now bisexual or otherwise HIV infected people can marry with no such test.

The testing was done for the sake of the children of the union, iirc, and syphillis did indeed infect 20% of all Americans, men, women and children.

Things have changed...

[Judith Anne]

And BY LAW all Hansen's Disease (leprosy) victims were quarantined until well into the second half of the last century, until an effective cure was developed, iirc. And that is much less infective than HIV.