178 Epidemics. 



that indispensable means of protection against infection by 

 contact, was proposed by physicians of the second century 

 after Christ, in order to check the spreading of leprosy." 



Of course, if it was getting less in the second century, the 

 adoption of total separation of lepers from the healthy would 

 not have been dreamed of. Neither would lazar-houses 

 have been common in Spain in 1067 A.D. if for some long 

 time before leprosy had not been on the increase in Spain, 

 which, from 537 A.D., when history refers to its prevalence, 

 would give a period of 530 years. It would be on the in- 

 crease from about 537 to 600 A.D., and then more gradually; 

 for it is some length of time before a chronic disease like 

 leprosy makes much impression upon the community at 

 large. 



Again, we find England legislating for it in 1237, an ^ 

 Spain again in 1441. Of course in England it was new 

 since 1177, and not till some centuries after its appearance 

 in Spain was it to be found in England, though probably 

 soldiers in the armies of Vespasian and Titus had remained 

 some two to three years in Palestine before 70 A.D., who 

 found their way back to Gaul and Britain as lepers at that 

 early period, but died out without its spreading, from the 

 ungenial condition of something in those lands at that time 

 to its spread ; but changes slowly going on within and on 

 the earth's surface prepare lands for the reception and en- 

 grafting of disease, which at another time cannot be properly 

 acclimatised. So we find that after 1177 an aptness for 

 leprosy and other diseases had over-shadowed the variable 

 clime and habits of the British people, and what the Crusaders 

 got in Palestine was propagated and became indigenous to 

 our land for some 300 years, after which time it slowly 

 declined, and has now completely died out. 



Of small-pox and Levant plague, we hear little, if any- 

 thing, of them in North Europe from about 537 to 1174; 



