262 



THOMAS CHAPLIN, ESQ., M.D., ON 



It is not, like nega, used in a general sense, but only as 

 indicating a specific and malignant condition. It is, how- 

 ever, to be observed that this condition did not always arise 

 from the same disease ; just as a person may become 

 comatose, or " insensible," from a number of different morbid 

 conditions, so a man might become mat zoor'ali, or " leprous," 

 from different morbid conditions. 



The words translated " a rising," a " scab," a " bright 

 spot," were apparently general and popularly understood 

 terms wliich included all the various forms of skin eruptions. 

 The saeth, or rising, might be a pimple, a boil at its com- 

 mencement, the papule with which the eruption of smallpox 

 begins, the tubercle of tubercular, the papule or the " bleb " 

 of anaesthetic leprosy, or any eruption elevated above the 

 general level of the skin. The sapakhath, or scab, might be 

 the scaly patches of psoriasis or eczema, the crusts of 

 ecthyma, rupia, tinea (scalled head), or such an eruption as 

 smallpox, chicken-pox, etc., whilst the hahereth, or bright 

 spot would be any striking change in the colour of parts of 

 the skin, whether wliite or red, and might include not only 

 leuce, psoriaeis, the dusky red eruption of tubercular leprosy, 

 and the pale, slowly-spreading patches of the anaesthetic 

 kind, but possibly even such eruptions as those of erysipelas, 

 or measles. For it is to be noted that the diseases which 

 were to be brought to the priest were not all chronic, much 

 less incurable, affections. On the contrary, some of them 

 Avere such as change either for the worse or the better in the 

 course of seven or fourteen days, and even the graver kinds 

 which had been adjudged "leprous," or at least some of 

 them, were susceptible of cure. 



The first and most remarkable of the diseases indicated as 

 " unclean" was distinguished by a rising, a scab, or a bright 

 spot, affecting the deeper layers of the skin, and turrjing the 

 hair of the affected place white (ver. 2, 3). Such a disease 

 was called by the ancient Greek physicians leuce^ XevKr], and 

 by the Romans vitiligo. It is not mfrequent in Palestine at 

 the present day. The writer has seen several instances of it.* 



At a period when these diseases were perhaps more 

 common and more dreaded than they are now, any dis- 

 coloured patch occurring on the skin would naturally arouse 

 suspicion, and persons who were affected only Avitli some 



* Lancet, 1868, p. 656, " On a case of Leiice." By Thomas Chaiilin, 

 M.D. 



