Dr. Aikslie's Observations on the Lepra Arabum. 293 



is this, that in every case of it I have known, in an European habit, the 

 affected person was a German, a Dane, or a Swede, but never an Englishman : 

 now as we learn from various accounts, that this horrid scourge is still 

 occasionally met with in the northern* parts of Europe, though long 

 banished from Britain and Ireland, it becomes a query, whether those 

 men may not have brought the seeds of the disease with them from their 

 native country. ' Ki^jq }:;fvi .7. 



To ascertain the true cause or causes of this leprosy would be no easy task ; 

 and I fear, as happens in the instances of many other affections to which 

 the human frame is subject, that here little more is in our power than to 

 offer a probable conjecture. Dr. T. Heberden, in his account of the 

 malady, distinguishes it into two species, according to its manner of attack, 

 viz. that by Jtujrion, and that by congestion. The first he thinks is often 

 the attendant of crapula, or surfeits from some gross food, whereby the 

 latent mischief may be called into action ; violent! agitation of mind is 

 supposed to be a not unfrequent cause of the disorder ; and, in the female 

 sex, a suddenly suppressed menstrual discharge by bathing the legs in cold 

 water at an improper time. Aretseust calls it, according to the theory of 

 the age in which he lived, a refrigeration of the innate heat, or rather a 

 congelation similar to the conversion of water into snow, and perhaps this 

 comes as near the truth as any thing that has been said on the subject in 

 these more enlightened days. 



Some time towards the end of the year 1811, I requested Mr. Charles 

 Stewart, a medical officer then under my superintendance, and stationed at 

 Tranquebar, in the vicinity of which town the leprosy of the Arabians is 

 very common, minutely to examine as many persons labouring under the 

 disease as he could collect together, and to report to me accordingly. 

 Mr. Stewart obeyed my instructions ; and the following are the general 

 conclusions which I drew from that gentleman's observations on fifty lepers, 

 male and female : — 



«■ It would appear by some late accounts, that the Lepra Arabum is very common in Iceland 

 and Norway, in which first-mentioned country it is mentioned under the name of Skyrbjugur. 

 See an excellent description of it, as it appears in those paws of the world, in a letter from 

 Chevalier Bach to Dr. Trail, in Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels, vol. i. page 713. 



t See Edinb. Practice of Medicine, vol. iv. page 511. 



X See Aretsus, page 279. 



2 Q2 



