OF SELBORNE. 205 



LETTER XXXVII. 



TO THE SAME. 



Selborne, Jan. 8, 1778. 

 DEAR SIR, 



THERE was in this village several years ago a miserable 

 pauper, who, from his birth, was afflicted with a leprosy, as 

 far as we are aware of a singular kind, since it affected only 

 the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet. This scaly 

 eruption usually broke out twice in the year, at the spring 

 and fall ; and, by peeling away, left the skin so thin and 

 tender that neither his hands or feet were able to perform 

 their functions ; so that the poor object was half his time on 

 crutches, incapable of employ, and languishing in a tiresome 

 state of indolence and inactivity. His habit was lean, lank, 

 and cadaverous. In this sad plight he dragged on a miser- 

 able existence, a burden to himself and his parish, which was 

 obliged to support him till he was relieved by death at more 

 than thirty years of age. 



The good women, who love to account for every defect in 

 children by the doctrine of longing, said that his mother felt 

 a violent propensity for oysters, which she was unable to 

 gratify; and that the black rough scurf on his hands and 

 feet were the shells of that fish. We knew his parents, 

 neither of which were lepers ; his father in particular lived 

 to be far advanced in years. 



In all ages the leprosy has made dreadful havock among 

 mankind. The Israelites seem to have been greatly afflicted 

 with it from the most remote times ; as appears from the 

 peculiar and repeated injunctions given them in the Levitical 

 law. r Nor was the rancour of this foul disorder much abated 

 in the last period of their commonwealth, as may be seen in 

 many passages of the New Testament. 



r See Leviticus, chap. xiii. and xiv. 



