Epidemics. 163 



where there were many lazar-houses built for the reception 

 of the sufferers from leprosy ; but at the end of this period 

 the/ gradually sank into the disreputable use of being a kind 

 of casual-wards for vagrants, with old ulcers, and any 

 loathsome self-created or natural ulcer on the skin, or 

 cutaneous affection, the presence of which was supposed by 

 the professional mendicants to afford an all-sufficient plea 

 for why the opulent, out of their abundance, ought to give 

 freely and ungrudgingly to the sufferers and distressed in 

 their sore afflictions. 



In 1477 leprosy appears to have been very prevalent in 

 Spain ; and in the city of Lebrija, in the province of 

 Andalusia, so late as 1726 to 1764. 



Abstracting 640 from 1177, leaves 537. The period, then, 

 between 537 to 1177 next comes under review a period of 

 history the most replete with interest to the entire family of 

 man, for it embraces the period of the planting and policy of 

 the nations which rose upon the decay and downfall of the old 

 Roman world, and introduces us to the infancy and child- 

 hood of modern Europe. But it also brings us back to the 

 alphabet and spelling-books of mental infancy and mental 

 childhood, and that to an extent which is almost incredible. 

 Such historians as Hallam, Guizot, and Craik, with all 

 their force of diction and illustration, almost fail to convince 

 the manhood of Europe, that in childhood such imbecility 

 and intellectual weakness could ever have been the lot of 

 cultivated and refined modern Europe. 



In, therefore, everything that is said upon this epoch on 

 epidemics, such as choose to differ, especially after the 

 eighth century, can do so with the utmost liberty, for variety 

 of opinions are always admissible where data can scarcely 

 be adduced. 



Having so far prefaced the subject of the epoch from 537 

 to 1177, little else can be said beyond mere generalities. 



II 2 



