Epidemics. 173 



offspring migrate to the Western States of America, or some 

 genial locality for the sufferers, and its hereditary bias soon 

 dies orut. But in the East, in the South Sea Islands, in 

 New Brunswick and Norway in fact, in a range of wide 

 circumference from its old centre the Nile leprosy is show- 

 ing itself as a widespread and inveterate disease, but at the 

 present time rarely infectious.* 



This disease, then, as the oldest-known disease, and whose 

 centre is on the banks of the Nile, ought to show, if there 

 is such a thing as metamorphosis of disease, indications of 

 change of a slow and progressive character ought to exist ; 

 and one of these changes appears to be that of infection, 

 which it once possessed, but now has nearly lost. More- 

 over, its geographical distribution has assumed large pro- 

 portions, and the victims it seizes are now becoming very 

 numerous and alarming. 



In the days of Moses, its external manifestations were 

 considerably varied to leprosy as it now exists, or that de- 

 scribed by the earlier Arabian, Roman, and Greek writers, 

 and also of a very decidedly infectious character. That of 

 Pompey's time was most likely a nearer approach to the 

 Mosaic type than that which followed after, and was 

 transitional in most of its outlines between the Mosaic and 

 Greek or Arabian form, inasmuch as the disgust to the 

 personal appearance is not so strongly marked as in earlier 

 writers, nor yet the fear of infection ; yet the personal appear- 

 ance to this day constitutes a very leading feature of dis- 

 gust, and the avoidance of lepers, by later writers, is often 

 referred to on this very ground. 



It must be granted that the leprosy of Moses is only so 



# The point of non-contagion in leprosy has been fairly disputed by 

 Dr. G. A. Hansen, Bergen, Norway, in an able article " On the Etiology 

 of Leprosy," in the British and Foreign Mcdico-Chirurgical Review, 

 April, 1875. 



