Epidemics. 167 



saving among the Saracens, several of whom give excellent 

 descriptions of leprosy, and were familiar with it from Spain 

 to Bagdad. 



'As small-pox and plague, as described by the Arabian 

 physicians and by Procopius, were unknown before this 

 time, leprosy is the only disease through which we can trace 

 the metamorphosis of disease in an old and well-authenticated 

 malady, which sprang from the earliest land of wealth and 

 civilization, and to this day remains, under every vicissitude 

 of dynasty, the constant pest of its first endemic seat, the 

 land of Egypt. 



What further can be said upon epidemic eras must be 

 chiefly confined, in the form of epidemic disease, to this old 

 and despised disease, leprosy. 



Strange to say, no veneration is paid to leprosy by the 

 votaries of antiquity to this very day ; though, as an old 

 and somewhat transformed ailment, having for fashion's sake 

 slowly moved with the times, it can claim respect and 

 abhorrence from the Pharoahs on to the days of Queen 

 Victoria. 



To return, leprosy was in Spain 48 B.C., and was intro- 

 duced there by Pompey's army. That army was in Asia 

 Minor from 65 to 62 B.C. Pompey disbanded his army at 

 Brundusium in 62 B.C., or in the same year that he left Asia 

 Minor. 



In this manner leprosy spread from Egypt to Italy and 

 Spain, where it appears to have remained, or rather, as 

 Tacitus informs us, in Italy it soon disappeared altogether ; 

 but in 614 it reappeared, and was so far prevalent that it 

 received special consideration at the time. As this disease 

 is slow in its spreading, and also, in addition to its admitted 

 hereditary nature, is, as an endemic affection, scarcely 

 conceded to be aided by infection, it may be presumed to 

 have been slowly reviving for some 50 or 60 years earlier. 



