LETTER XXXVII 



TO THE SAME 



SELBORNE./flW. 8, 1778. 



DEAR SIR, There was in this village several years ago 

 a miserable pauper, who from his birth was afflicted with a 

 leprosy, as far as we are aware of a singular kind, since it 

 affected only the palms of his hands and the soles of his 

 feet. This scaly eruption usually broke out twice in the 

 year, at the spring and fall ; and, by peeling away, left the 

 skin so thin and tender that neither his hands or feet were 

 able to perform their functions ; so that the poor object 

 was half his time on crutches, incapable of employ, and 

 languishing in a tiresome state of indolence and inactivity. 

 His habit was lean, lank, and cadaverous. In this sad plight 

 he dragged on a miserable existence, a burden to himself 

 and his parish which was obliged to support him till he was 

 relieved by death at more than thirty years of age. 



The good women, who love to account for every defect 

 in children by the doctrine of longing, said that his mother 

 felt a violent propensity for oysters, which she was unable 

 to gratify ; and that the black rough scurf on his hands and 

 feet were the shells of that fish. We knew his parents, 

 neither of which were lepers ; his father in particular lived 

 to be far advanced in years. 



In all ages the leprosy has made dreadful havoc among 

 mankind. The Israelites seem to have been greatly afflicted 

 with it from the most remote times ; as appears from the 

 peculiar and repeated injunctions given them in the Leviticat 

 law. 1 Nor was the rancour of this foul disorder much 



1 See Leviticus, xiii. and xiv. [G. W.] 



