VOL. L.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 75 



body. Sometimes they are a little prominent, but flat. When the disease 

 makes a progress, the upper part of the nose swells, the nostrils are enlarged, 

 the nose becomes softened ; tuberosities appear on the cheek-bones ; the eye- 

 brows are inflated ; the ears grow thick ; the ends of the fingers, and even the 

 feet and toes, swell ; the nails become scaly ; the joints of the feet and hands 

 separate and mortify ; ulcers of a deep and of a dry nature are found in the palms 

 of the hands and soles of the feet, which grow well, and return again. In short 

 when the disease is in its last stage, the patient becomes frightful, and falls to 

 pieces. All these symptoms come on by very slow degrees, one after another, 

 and sometimes require many years to show themselves : the patient is sensible of 

 no sharp pain ; but feels a kind of numbness in his hands and feet. These peo- 

 ple perform their natural functions all the while, eating and drinking as usual : 

 and when even the mortification has taken off" the fingers and toes, the only ill 

 consequence that attends, is the loss of those parts that drop off* by the morti- 

 fication ; for the wound heals of itself; without any application: but when it 

 comes to its last period, the poor sick persons are horribly deformed, and truly 

 worthy of compassion. 



This shocking disease is observed to have several other unhappy characters ; 

 as, 1st, that it is hereditary, and that some families are more apt to be seized 

 with it than others : 2dly, that it is infectious ; being communicated per coitum, 

 and also caught by keeping company with those so diseased : 3dly, that it is in- 

 curable, or at least that no remedy has yet been found to cure it. They have in 

 vain tried mercurials, sudorifics, and every other regimen used in the venereal 

 complaints, under a notion, that this leprosy was the consequence of some ve- 

 nereal taint : but, instead of being of service, these methods rather served to 

 destroy the patients ; for, far from lessening the disease, the antivenereal me- 

 dicines unlocked the distemper, the most dreadful symptoms appeared, and all 

 those so treated perished some years sooner than the others, who did not take 

 these medicines. 



A very just fear of being infected with this cruel distemper ; the difficulty of 

 examining infected persons before the disease came to its state ; the length of 

 time of its lying concealed, by the care of the patients to keep it secret ; the 

 uncertainty of the symptoms, which distinguish it in the beginning ; produced 

 an extraordinary dread in aJl the inhabitants of this island. They suspected one 

 another, since virtue and merit had no shelter from this cruel scourge. They 

 called this distemper the leprosy ; and consequently presented several memoirs to 

 the generals and intendants, laying before them all these facts above-mentioned ; 

 their just apprehensions ; the public good ; the trouble that this distrust caused 

 in this colony ; the complaints and hatred that these accusations occasioned 

 among them ; the laws made formerly against such leprous persons, . arid their 



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