NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 



LETTER XXXVII 



SELBORNE, Jan. %th, 1778. 



DEAR SIR, There was in this village several years ago a 

 miserable pauper, who from his birth was afflicted with a lep- 

 rosy, 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 nor feet were able to per- 

 form 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 miserable 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, nei- 

 ther of which were lepers ; his father in particular lived to 

 be far advanced in years. 



In all ages the leprosy has made dreadful havoc among 

 mankind. The Israelites seem to have been greatly afflicted 

 with it from the most remote times, as appears from the pecul- 

 iar and repeated injunctions given them in the Levitical law. 1 

 Nor was the rancor of this foul disorder much abated in the 

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

 passages of the New Testament. 



Some centuries ago this horrible distemper prevailed all 

 Europe over : and our forefathers were by no means exempt, 

 as appears by the large provision made for objects laboring 

 under this calamity. There was an 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, 

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