SOME DISEASES MENTIONED IN THE BIBLE. 265 



intentional, and one cannot bnt suspect that a class of cases is 

 referred to in which the anxious sufferer seeks to destroy 

 the first signs of the dreaded disease by burning- the affected 

 part with a hot iron. The writer has known several instances 

 in which the endeavour has been made to obliterate by this 

 means the first signs of elephantiasis, and thus to prevent, 

 or postpone, the person being sent away from his village 

 into the abode of the lepers. Note in verses 21 and 22, '2C^ 

 and 27, that " spreading " alone is sufficient ground for 

 condemning the case as unclean, even though there be no 

 AV'hite hairs, and the place be no lower than the other skin. 



At verse 29 we come to a quite different kind of disease, 

 namely, a plague upon the head or beard. The '• yellow, 

 thin hair " suggests at once a form of ringworm, which is 

 described in almost the same words by modern physicians ; 

 the Liairs " on the patch being of a yellowish-grey colour, 

 dry, shrivelled, bent, and withered." The word translated 

 " scall " signifies to pull out, and is remarkably appropriate 

 to a disease in which the affected spot soon becomes " more 

 or less denuded of hair." Spreading ; the deep parts of the 

 skin, that is, the true dermis, being affected ; discoloured, 

 weak, and brittle hairs ; are still the signs by which the 

 physician judges that this disease is not yet cured, and it is 

 only when hair of the natural colour begins to grow on the 

 affected spot that he pronounces the case healed. Other 

 forms of spreading skin disease of the scalp and beard are 

 doubtless included here. At verse 36 the priest is instructed 

 not to look for yellow hair " if the scall be spread in the 

 skin," the person being by that sign alone known to be 

 unclean. It is noteworthy that these spreading diseases in 

 which there is no yellow hair are not called tzaraatli, but 

 only said to be " unclean" (ver. 'MS). 



The harmless " freckled spot " in the skin (ver. 39) is still, 



in Arabic, called by the same name, hohak { iT,;)' 



The white or reddish spot, or rising, in the bald head 

 (vers. 42-44), which is to be pronounced " utterly unclean," 

 may be the tubercle of elephantiasis, or epithelial cancer, or 

 some other kind of malignant sore or growth. King Uzziah's 

 leprosy began in his forehead (2 Chron. xxvi., 19). 



It may be remarked in passing that the extreme importance 

 attached to the strict observance of the laws relating to 

 leprosy (Deut. xxiv., 8) did not rest solely on sanitary 

 considerations. Then, as in later times, " leprosy " seems to 



