LEPROSY. 93 



shall shut up the house seven days, and shall look, and be- 

 hold if the plague be spread in the walls of the house, then 

 the priest shall command to remove the stones, and he 

 shall cause the house to be scraped within round about, 

 and they shall replace them with new stones, and they 

 shall take other mortar and plaster it. And if the plague 

 come again, and break out in the house, then the priest 

 shall come and look, and behold, if the plague be spread 

 in the house, it is a spreading leprosy, and he shall break 

 down the house. * 



" This is the law for all manner of plague of leprosy and 

 scall, and for the leprosy of a garment and of a house." 



There is here described a disease, whose cause must 

 have been of organic growth, capable of living in the 

 human being, and of creating there a foul and painful 

 disease of contagious character, whilst it could also live 

 and reproduce itself in garments of wool, linen, or skins; 

 nay more, it could attach itself to the walls of a house; 

 and there also effect its own reproduction. Animalcules, 

 always capable of choice, would scarcely be found so trans- 

 ferable; and we are therefore justified in supposing, that 

 green or red fungi, so often seen in epidemic periods, 

 were the protean disease of man, and his garment, and 

 his house. 



Hecker also says, " These spots (signacula), and espe- 

 cially the blood spots (red cryptogami), were seen at a 

 very early period, as, for instance, in the sixth century; 

 and again during the plagues of 786 and 959, when it is 

 said to have been remarked, that those on whose clothes 

 they frequently appeared, and seemingly imparted to them 

 a peculiar odor, were more liable than others to an attack 

 of leprosy. Hence thay were named clothes leprosy 

 (lepra vestium)" 



