172 ■ PROC. COTTESWOLD CLUB vol. xiii. (3) 



interdicted from appearing in public without his leper's 

 dress, from eating and drinking with any but other lepers, 

 and he received a great variety of other ordinances. The 

 ceremony terminated by the chief official throwing a 

 handful of earth over the body of the poor outcast in 

 imitation of the closure of the grave. 



I said just now that the disease has hitherto baffled all 

 the efforts of science to discover a remedy, and I believe 

 this is strictly true. I did read the other day a German 

 report of a case at Hamburg about lO years ago which 

 a Dr Unna claims to have cured as the result of a course 

 of treatment spread over several months. He shows 

 photographs of the patient before and after the treatment, 

 but although these certainly indicate a great improvement 

 in the condition of the patient, they also show that the 

 disease was by no means very far advanced. His treatment 

 consisted chiefly in the use of ichthyol, in rubbing the 

 patient with pyrogallic acid, and in applying to the forehead 

 and chin a plaster made of chrysophanic and salicylic acids 

 with creasote. 



In the Middle Ages leprosy was universally believed to 

 be incurable, though from time to time all sorts of specifics 

 were pronounced to be remedies, such as a bath of dogs' 

 blood, and even a bath of the blood of young children was 

 declared to be a certain cure. 



Of late years two kinds of oil, gurjun oil and chaub- 

 moogra oil, have been found to possess very considerable 

 power, being taken internally and also rubbed over the 

 skin, but the utmost that can be said of this treatment is 

 that in some cases the progress of the disease is certainly 

 arrested and kept in quiescence for a more or less ex- 

 tended period, though I believe that, when it does recur, 

 it comes back with extra virulence. 



I have seen a most curious account of a method adopted 

 for cure among the natives in the Fiji Islands. The leper 



