442 Leprosy in India. [part ii. 



same time, in some instances the two symptoms are so equally evident, that it is 

 difficult or impossible to classify them satisfactorily, and in such a case the designation 

 "mixed" variety may be conveniently resorted to. For convenience of description, a 

 fourth term may be adopted, as suggested by Dr. Vandyke Carter, to designate those 

 cases in which the eruption forms the most prominent characteristic. These two may 

 be looked upon as varieties. The eruption may constitute a conspicuous feature in 

 either the anaesthetic or the tuberculated form. 



The terms applied by the various populations of India to indicate the disease are 

 not so numerous as might have been expected, considering the number of languages 

 and dialects there are in the country. Although the works on medicine which the 

 hakeems, or native practitioners, consult, recognise at least eighteen varieties of the 

 disease, the ordinary native only recognises one or two general terms for the com- 

 plaint. This seems to be due chiefly to the fact that the principal ancient treatises 

 on medicine in this country were written in Sanskrit — a circumstance which accounts 

 for the general uniformity in the terms adopted for the leading diseases in the different 

 provinces. Indeed, it is probable that, with regard to leprosy, most natives in any 

 part of India would understand what was referred to from the Sanskrit Kushtha, or 

 some of its vernacular forms, such as Kushta (Teligu and Tamil) Kiith or Kut (pro- 

 nounced Koot) or Kud (Bengali, Uriya and Assamese) and Kut or Korh (Hindi, Punjabi 

 and Marhatti). By way of euphemism the disease is also commonly indicated by the 

 Sanskrit terms Roga (vernacular Rog, pronounced Rogue), and Vyddhi (vernacular 

 Byddh — both meaning " disease ") or Mahdrog or Mahabyadh, " the great disease." 

 The Arabic term Juzdm * is likewise extensively used in Northern India, and rarely, 

 the Persian Luo'i. These terms are generally applied to the tubercular forms of leprosy, 

 or rather to the forms characterised by the presence of deformities ; whereas the more 

 distinctly anaesthetic form is frequently described as Sunbharri (deprived of sensibility, 

 Hindee). The Arabic word Baras, the Persian Pes and the Sanskrit Dhaval (white) 

 are also used to designate leprous conditions, but generally these terms refer to an 

 affection which is not leprous, viz., the albino-condition of the skin described by 

 systematic writers as Leucoderma — a circumstance which, as already mentioned, very 

 greatly enhances the difficulty of obtaining correct statistics regarding leprosy proper. f 



The diseasel has been known to exist in India for at least 3,000 years, but com- 



* Juzdm is explained in the Arabic dictionaries as " a certain disease arising from the spreading of the 

 blackbile, throughout the whole person, so that it corrupts the temperament of the members, and the external 

 condition thereof, and sometimes ending in the con-osion, or falling off, of the members, in consequence of 

 ulceration." 



f Dr. Edjendralala Mitra, the well-known Sanskrit scholar, has, very kindly, revised the above paragrapli. 



j The " Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal," for August 1875 (p. 160), contains a very interesting 

 communication by BAbu RajendraMla Mitra, LL.D., in reply to some questions regarding leprosy in Ancient 

 India, put to the Society by Dr. W. Munroe. Dr. Mitra writes : — 



"Taking Sus'ruta to be 400 B.C. (this date is Wilson's, I take him to be two centuries older) we must look 

 for the date of Charaka, whom he quotes, in the sixth century B.C. Sus'ruta professes to record the lectures 

 of his tutor Dhanvantari, and very sparingly quotes his predecessors ; but his chapter on leprosy is founded 

 on Charaka, as Dr. Munroe will easily perceive by comparing Hesseler's translation in Latin (published at 



