214 NATURAL HiSTORY OF SELBORNE. 
~ = — ——— 
1 a Or ee 
TO THE SAME. 
SELBORNE, Yau. 8th, 1778. 
DEAR SIR,—There was in this village several years ago a 
miserable pauper, who from his birth was afflicted with a leprosy, 
as far as we are aware of a singular kind, since it affected only the 
palms of his hands and the soles of his feet. This scaly eruption 
usually broke out twice in the year, at the spring and fall ; and, by 
peeling away, left the skin so thin and tender that neither his 
hands or feet were able to perform their functions; so that the 
poor object was half his time on crutches, incapable of employ, 
and languishing in a tiresome state of indolence and inactivity. 
His habit was lean, lank, and cadaverous. In this sad plight he 
dragged on a miserable existence, a burden to himself and his 
parish which was obliged to support him till he was relieved by 
death at more than thirty years of age. 
The good women, who love to account for every defect in 
children by the doctrine of longing, said that his mother felt a 
violent propensity for oysters, which she was unable to gratify ; and 
that the black rough scurf on his hands and feet were the shells of 
that fish. We knew his parents, neither of which were lepers ; his 
father in particular lived to be far advanced in years. 
In all ages the leprosy has made dreadful havoc among mankind. 
The Israelites seem to have been greatly afflicted with it from the 
most remote times, as appears from the peculiar and repeated 
injunctions given them in the Levitical law.* Nor was the 
rancour of this foul disorder much abated in the last period of 
their commonwealth, as may be seen in many passages of the 
New Testament. 
Some centuries ago this horrible distemper prevailed all Europe 
over ; and our forefathers were by no means exempt, as appears by 
the large provision made for objects labouring under this calamity. 
There was an hospital for female lepers in the diocese of Lincoln ; 
* See Leviticus, xiii. xiv. 
