4 o TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



ufing the baths of Poretta, the property of my friend Count 

 Ranuzzi, in the mountains above Bologna, which I recom- 

 mend, for rheir efficacy, to all thofe who have wounds, as I 

 do to him to have better accommodation, greater abun- 

 dance of, and lefs impofition in, the neceffaries of life than 

 when I was there, It is but a few hours journey over the 

 mountains to Piiloia. 



The laft I ihall mention of thefe endemial difeafes, and 

 the mod terrible of all others that can fall to the lot of man, 

 is the Elephantiafis, which fome have chofen to call the Le- 

 profy, or Lepra Arabum ; though in its appearance, and in 

 all its circumftances and ftages, it no more refembles the 

 leprofy of Paleftine, (which is, I apprehend, the only le- 

 profy that we know) than it does the gout or the dropfy. 

 I never faw the beginning of this difeafe. During the courfe 

 of it, the face is often healthy to appearance ; the eyes vivid 

 and fparkling: thofe affected have fometimes a kind of dry- 

 nefs upon the fkin of their backs, which, upon fcratching, 

 I have feen leave a mealinefs, or whitenefs ; the only cir- 

 cumitance, to the bed of my recollection, in which it re- 

 fembled the leprofy, but it has no fcalinefs. The hair, too, 

 is of its natural colour; not white, ycllowim, or thin, as 

 in the leprofy, but fo far from it that, though the Abyili- 

 nians have very rarely hair upon their chin, I have feen 

 people, apparently in the laft ft age of the elephantiafis, with 

 a very good beard of its natural colour. 



The appetite is generally good during this difeafe, nor 

 does any change of regimen affect the complaint. The 

 pulfe is only fubject to the fame variations as in thofe who 

 have no declared nor predominant illnefs ; they have a con- 



4 flant 



