Epidemics. 171 



If it is contended that at a given period leprosy was 

 endemic in Asia Minor, it must be said that its slow progress 

 as an endemic disease, especially to strangers, is very 

 marked. Take Bergen for a sample, where a stranger settling 

 amongst them is scarcely ever known to become subject ta 

 it ; much more a people whose habits, diet, active duties, 

 and healthy or cheerful minds, elated by many successes,, 

 would be the last of all to be subjects for the slow induction 

 of endemic disease of a very chronic character. 



It could not be possibly of hereditary origin, because pro- 

 creation with natives in four years could send back no men 

 ready for soldiers, but little children, to Italy, old enough 

 neither for training nor enlisting ; and Pompey's army, when 

 disbanded, would scarcely be burdened with little children. 

 Pliny says, according to Adam's "Commentary" upon Paulus 

 JEgineta, that when it was imported from Egypt it raged for 

 a time, but soon became extinct. 



By raging we understand that it spread itself to many 

 persons in Italy, irrespective of the soldiers; or to large 

 numbers beyond those who first brought the disease with 

 them, who were of Pompey's army. Its rapid spread 

 excludes hereditary origin, whilst its early extinction, or so 

 far as not to be generally known, if at all, as at present in 

 this country (England), indicates that its endemic form 

 found in Italy an unsuitable soil where it might plant itself 

 as a vigorous colony of blighted men. This view is con- 

 firmed by Celsus, who states that it " is a chronic disease,, 

 almost unknown in Italy, but very common in certain 

 countries." 



If, then, its origin was not endemic, nor yet hereditary, it 

 must have been epidemic, or by some peculiar change in 

 relation to the earth, whereby a disease, formerly settled 

 within a given area, receives some fresh impulse and further 

 powers of development than usual, and spreads, as it were,. 



