1 68 Epidemics. 



And the same may be said much later on with regard to 

 Spain, for in 1067 lazar-houses were common in Spain ; 

 but they do not appear to have been restricted to the Arab 

 population, and were asylums for the poor of all nation- 

 alities who suffered from this loathsome malady. 



If infection be granted, France had been slow to receive 

 the infection, as she was not under the necessity of resorting 

 to lazar-houses till much later. If it was hereditary, then 

 it had spread by intercourse very widely ; and if endemic in 

 Spain at this time, and for some time previously, the 

 hereditary bias may be dispensed with, as it is hereditary 

 in Norwegians now without any African admixture of blood, 

 and its pure endemical origin excludes both Pompey and 

 the Saracen from aiding it in any way whatever. But its 

 hereditary nature would admit of a slow and very doubtful 

 extension throughout Spain. 



Upon the whole, Italy and Spain, both having had it 

 within 60 B.C., and its reappearing after some 600 years of 

 comparative absence, and being sufficiently frequent to 

 claim for it a passing notice by the historian, and still more, 

 a notice from existing rulers to build houses as asylums for 

 those afflicted with it all this shows that some change in 

 those lands had occurred, no doubt of a subtle and obscure 

 nature, which permitted and aided the spread of this awful 

 chronic malady from the seventh century and onwards. 



But let us enquire how Pompey's army became subject to 

 this malady. 



Egypt was the common focus or centre of leprosy, and so 

 early as 1490 B.C., or earlier, it is admitted by the Egyptian 

 historian Manetho to have an existence in his native land ; 

 but he fathers the disease upon the Hebrews, who brought 

 it with them from Canaan. 



Whether, therefore, the statement of Manetho is right or 

 wrong in relation to the Hebrews, it is clear that Egypt 



