214 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



LETTER XXXVII. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, yan. $>th, 1778. 



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

 miserable pauper, who from his birth was afflicted with a leprosy, 

 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 or feet were able to perform 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, neither 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 peculiar and repeated 

 injunctions given them in the Levitical law.* Nor was the 

 rancour 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 labouring under this calamity. 

 There was an hospital for female lepers in the diocese of Lincoln ; 



* See Leviticus, xiii. xiv. 



