156 PROC. COTTESWOLD CLUB vol. xiii. (3) 



There are two distinct forms of the disease, the tuber- 

 cular and the anEesthetic ; and sometimes both exist on 

 the same patient. Sores break out over the body with 

 most loathsome discharge. Nodules arise over the sur- 

 face of the flesh, the extremities, fingers, toes, nose, 

 gradually vanish and drop off, hands and feet becoming 

 shapeless stumps, and often the whole face becomes so 

 bulged and distorted that it hardly seems to bear any re- 

 semblance to a human countenance. Frightful looking 

 objects many of them were, but they none of them seemed 

 to suffer pain, and hardly to realize their position ; all 

 seemed wonderfully cheerful and quite ready to laugh at 

 any little remark. 



Part III. — An Account of Leprosy 



There have been many diseases in the history of the 

 world which from time to time have ravaged humanity, 

 and then have seemed to disappear more or less entirely. 

 Other diseases again, unknown of old, seem to have been 

 produced by causes coincident with the advance of civiliza- 

 tion. Leprosy stands in neither of these categories. It 

 has been known some thousands of years : it exists to-day 

 over the greater part of the world's surface. It has, 

 perhaps more than any other disease, afforded mankind 

 subject for legislation and regulation ; and yet it is a disease 

 perhaps almost as mysterious to-day as it was when the 

 Israelites passed out of Egypt ; and it has, up to now, 

 entirely baffled all those efforts of medical science and 

 research which have been devoted to finding a cure for it. 



The disease is first definitely described in the " Ebers 

 Papyrus " which was found at Memphis, and was written 

 during the reign of Rameses 11. (1348 — 1281 B.C.), 

 though prescriptions have been found for a disease called 

 echetu, which seems to be leprosy, and these belong, it 



