211 THE NATURAL HISTORY [LETT. 



under this calamity. There was a hospital for female lepers in 

 the diocese of Lincoln, a noble one near Durham, three in 

 London and Southwark, and perhaps many more in or near our 

 great towns and cities. Moreover, some crowned heads, and 

 other wealthy and charitable personages, bequeathed large legacies 

 to such poor people as languished under this hopeless infirmity. 



It must therefore, in these days, be, to a humane and think- 

 ing person, a matter of equal wonder and satisfaction, when he 

 contemplates how nearly this pest is eradicated, and observes 

 that a leper now is a rare sight. He will, moreover, when 

 engaged in such a train of thought, naturally inquire for the 

 reason. This happy change perhaps may have originated and 

 been continued from the much smaller quantity of salted meat 

 and fish now eaten in these kingdoms ; from the use of linen 

 next the skin ; from the plenty of better bread ; and from the 

 profusion of fruits, roots, legumes, and greens, so common now 

 in every family. Three or four centuries ago, before there were 

 any inclosures, sown-grasses, field-turnips, or field-carrots, or 

 hay, all the cattle which had grown fat in summer, and were 

 not killed for winter use, were turned out soon after Michaelmas 

 to shift as they could through the dead months ; so that no 

 fresh meat could be had in winter or spring. Hence the mar- 

 vellous account of the vast stores of salted flesh found in the 

 larder of the eldest Spencer, viz. six hundred bacons, eighty 

 carcases of beef, and six hundred muttons, in the days of 

 Edward the Second, even so late in the spring as the 3rd of 

 May. It was from magazines like these that the turbulent 

 barons supported in idleness their riotous swarms of retainers 

 ready for any disorder or mischief. But agriculture is now 

 arrived at such a pitch of perfection, that our best and fattest 

 meats are killed in the winter; and no man need eat salted 

 flesh, unless he prefers it. 



One cause of this distemper might be, no doubt, the quantity 

 of wretched fresh and salt fish consumed by the commonalty 

 n.t all seasons as well as in Lent ; which our poor now would 

 hardly be persuaded to touch. 



The use of linen changes, shirts or shifts, in the room of 

 sordid and filthy woollen, long worn next the skin, is a matter 



