Epidemics. 21 1 



For, in accounting for its prevalence in Egypt in his own 

 time, he has to reproach a neighbouring and heroic nation, 

 who .were almost too few to be reckoned upon, from a 

 political point of view, as being worthy of notice in the scale 

 of nations ; but, to remove from Egypt the stigma of leprosy, 

 the Jews were a most suitable and safe butt of whom to 

 make a scapegoat, and to graft upon them the stigma which 

 belonged to themselves. For, of all historical data to show 

 that in Egypt leprosy has been endemic since history 

 commenced, this is the most unique and decisive we 

 possess, since, whoever brought it, when it got to Egypt it 

 is plain that there it became domiciled. 



If, then, at this time it was present in Egypt, and absent 

 elsewhere, how is it to be accounted for ? 



Perhaps a very meagre review of history upon this point 

 may be deemed useful. 



In the present day, taken all in all, there is no greater 

 authority than Francis Adams, the learned translator and 

 commentator upon Paulus ^Egineta, published under the 

 auspices of the Sydenham Society. He says, after 

 enumerating a long list of writers : " We owe the earliest 

 notice which we have of this disease (elephantiasis) to the 

 poet Lucretius, who briefly mentions it in the following 

 lines : 



" ' Est elephas morbus qui propter flumina Nili 



Gignitur ^Egypto in media neque praeterea usquam.' " 



Lucretius flourished and published his great poem between 

 5; and 55 B.C. 



As Lucretius was a man capable of abstract reasoning, 

 and in poetry could display the most subtle power of 

 denning and explaining causes and effects, according to the 

 point from which he viewed them, it is most important to 

 observe his style. 



From the lines quoted we infer that Lucretius considered 



142 



