AND LOWER EGYTT. Hi 



ments of M. Ratlaw, physician at Amsterdam, 

 who by the use of those pills, employed likewise 

 with success in the case of excrescences, performed 

 the cure of the elephantiasis of Europe *. 



I never heard mentioned, either in Egypt or in 

 the other parts of the Levant which I have tra- 

 versed, that leprosy which attaches itself to houses, 

 and respecting which there are prescriptions in 

 Leviticus -{-. Michaelis is of opinion, that by a 

 metaphor taken from the human leprosy, the 

 Orientalists may have given the same name to 

 certain spots which eat into the walls, and gradually 

 approach nearer and nearer ; he suspects that this 

 disease of the walls must be more common, and 

 more easily perceived in the East, where salt-petre 

 abounds:}:. These are assuredly very learned con- 

 jectures, but they have no foundation in truth. 

 The inhabitants of the East pay indeed no atten- 

 tion whatever to the leprous spots of buildings, 

 admitting that they slill make their appearance 

 there. The same people are as little acquainted 

 with another leprosy, which adheres to the gar- 

 ments, and upon the subject of which the Jewish 

 legislator has recommended such minute precau- 



* Michaelis. Learned and curious Travellers, &c. Sec. 

 Ques. xi. 



f Chap. xiv. V. 34, et seq. 



+ Work already quoted, ques. xii. 



lions. 



