no TRAVELS IN UPPER 



which they exhibit, that people have fallen into 

 contradictions with regard to the temperament of 

 lepers. It is certain that those last mentioned had 

 no disposition to lechery. The sufferings occasion- 

 ed by the violent spasms witli which their disease is 

 accompanied, and wnicii cause all the members to 

 contract, deprive tliem of every species of desire, 

 as well as of all power to gratify it, supposing 

 them capable of the passion; besides, they attain, 

 generally speaking, a very advanced age. 



Neither the Egyptians, nor any other of the 

 eastern nations, are acquainted with any preserva- 

 tive against the leprosy, nor with a remedy to heal 

 it. A Frenchman who gave himself out for a 

 physician, and who rambled over the Levant, 

 pretended to possess a secret, but infallible specific, 

 against this disorder. He visited Caneus, where 

 the number of lepers who exist there offered him 

 a wide field for giving undeniable proofs of the 

 virtue of his precious discovery. But as expe- 

 rience did not realize his fine promises, his remedy 

 acquired no greater celebrity than the other 

 panaceas which this mountebank vended from 

 country to country. I regretted very much that I 

 was not provided with some hemlock pills ; it 

 would have been very easy for me to make trial of 

 them, and there is every reason to presume that it 

 would not have been unsucccssful/romthe experi- 

 ments 



