HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



193 



LEPROSY. 



F we come to con- 

 sider leprosy from 

 a scientific and 

 medical point of 

 view, we find our 

 information upon 

 and present know- 

 ledge of the subject 

 very slight indeed. 

 No disease is less 

 easy of comprehen- 

 sion, less impos- 

 sible to heal, or 

 less revolting in 

 its nature than is 

 leprosy. What it 

 is, how it commu- 

 nicates itself, what 

 is its cause, it is 

 perhaps impossible 

 to determine, 

 ^schylus describes it as producing "lichens 

 coursing over the flesh, eroding with fierce voracity 

 the former natural structure," as acid eats into and 

 decays metal. 



Others suppose it to be a microscopic parasite, or, 

 more accurately, to be caused by living and self- 

 propagating animalculas. This view explains the 

 allusions in Scripture to leprosy on a wall and in the 

 warp and woof of garments. 



Again, it has been said that leprosy is an exagge- 

 rated species of scurvy ; and though the symptoms are 

 not altogether the same, we may find a certain amount 

 of truth and good sense in this suggestion, for both 

 diseases are aggravated by the same causes, i.e. want 

 of vegetable diet, want of cleanliness, and exposure 

 to cold and damp. 



Whether it be a parasitic lichen, a species of self- 

 propagating animalcule, or merely a skin disease of 

 an exaggerated type, caused by want of proper 

 nourishment and neglect, we cannot say. All three 

 views appear to us reasonable, but all three cannot 

 be correct. Certainly the view of .-Eschylus has the 

 No. 297. — September 1S89. 



merit of being no new idea, but a time-honoured 

 theory, with much about it that is credible ; the 

 erosive nature of the disease is without a doubt, and 

 may not the thickened state of the skin, the dusky red 

 or livid tubercles, the falling off of the hair (all three 

 prominent symptoms of leprosy) be caused by the 

 crescent lichens as they draw their sustenance from 

 the flesh which affords them a home ? 



This view appears to us more reasonable than that 

 which describes the disease as being due to self- 

 propagating animalculae, because we, now-a-days, 

 never meet with cases of leprosy in wood, stone, or 

 mortar, the warp or the woof. Animalculse would 

 be less likely to become parasites upon inorganic 

 matter than would lichens. 



We are unable to determine whether or no leprosy 

 be contagious ; it is certainly hereditary, though the 

 symptoms do not always show themselves at birth. 

 Some consider contagion possible from contact with 

 matter discharged from leprous sores, and, in this case, 

 we may suppose that the lichens, or perhaps their 

 seed, communicate themselves from the victim to the 

 clean man, and so fasten themselves upon him and 

 erode his flesh that it becomes impossible for him to 

 free himself from their destructive influence. 



We have in England an exceedingly small red 

 insect, known among country folk as the harvest bug, 

 which attacks human beings and eats its way under 

 the skin. Somewhat similar, also, is the tick, whose 

 habits are well known to all naturalists. May we not 

 compare this with the leprous lichen, which, after 

 having eaten its way under the skin, grows and thrives, 

 increases and multiplies? This comparison at first 

 sight seems more to favour the view of leprosy being 

 the cause of living animalcule. But on looking 

 closer we observe the following fact : that, whereas 

 the harvest bug and the tick continue to live and to 

 nourish themselves when under the human skin, 

 they have then no propagating power, whereas the 

 leprous lichen has. 



There are no less than six distinct species of 

 leprosy, viz. : — (i) Lepra Mosica (predominant in 

 Scripture) ; (2) Lepra Alphoidcs (characterised by 



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