1900 



THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS 



163 



disease, even though they do everything for their 



patients. 

 /. No cases have been ever described of the disease 



spreading outwards from the leper-houses. 

 g. There is no instance, with one exception, where a 



European, having contracted the disease in a leprous 



country, has then come home and conveyed it to 



others. 

 This is a strong body, if not of proof, at least of forcible 

 evidence. 



There is no doubt that in mediaeval times many Public 

 Regulations were instituted affecting lepers, and it seems 

 that affected districts had very full powers to control them 

 in every way. Very few of these laws have been pre- 

 served. The first recorded edict is by Pepin in 757, who, 

 amongst other things, proclaimed that leprosy in either 

 sex was a legal ground for divorce, and so prevalent was 

 the disease in Lombardy in his time, that we are told that 

 in some cities there were many men with three wives 

 hving at the same time. Charlemagne passed laws affect- 

 ing lepers in 789 ; and in 950, as I have said, Howel Dda, 

 the Welsh King, decreed, amongst other things, that a 

 woman might divorce a leprous husband, differing thus 

 very curiously from Pepin's law on the subject. We are 

 told by " Maister Hector Boece Channon of Aberdene " 

 that before the time of Malcolm Can more a man who was 

 " sic infirmitie \e.g. daft or wod] as succedis be heritage 

 fra the fader to the son was geldit (castrated). The woman 

 that was fallin lipper was banist fra the cumpany of men, 

 and gif scho consavit barne under sic infirmitie, baith scho 

 and hir barne war buryit quik " (alive). 



Philip V. of France passed a law that all leprous persons 

 were to be burnt ; this was in consequence of a belief having 



* Simpson, Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, 1842, p. 406. 

 t Bellenden, Translation of Boece 's History, p. 58. 



