﻿I50 ON THE CURE OF 



Leprosy, or the Beres of tlie Arabs and Leuce of the 

 Greeks. 



This disease, by whatever name we distinguish it, 

 is peculiar to hot climates, and has rarely appeared in 

 Europe. The philosophical poet of Rome supposes it 

 confined to the Banks of the Nile ; and it has cenainly 

 been imported from Africa into the West India islands 

 by the black slaves, who carried with them their re- 

 sentment and their revenge ; but it has been long 

 known in Hindustan: and the writer of the following 

 Dissertation, whose father was phvs : cian to Nadirshah 

 and accompanied him from Persia to Dehli, assures 

 me that it rages with virulence among the native in- 

 habitants of Calcutta. His observation, that it is fre- 

 quently a consequence of the venereal infection, would 

 lead us to believe that it might be ra ; ( ily cured 

 by mercury; which has, nevertheless, been found 

 ineffectual, and even hurtful, as Hdlrry reports, in 

 the Went Indies. The juice of hemlock, suggested 

 by the learned Michaelis, and approved by his medi- 

 cal friend Roederer, might be very efficacious at the 

 beginning of the disorder, or in the milder sorts of 

 it; but, in the case of a malignant and inveterate 

 judkam, we must either administer a remedy of the 

 highest power, or, agreeably to the desponding opi- 

 nion of Celsus, leave the patient to his fate, instead 

 of teasing him with fruitless medicines, and suffer him, 

 in the forcible words of Aretaus, to sink from inextri- 

 cable slumber into death. The life of a man is, how- 

 ever, so dear to him by nature, and in general so 

 valuable to society, that we should never despond 

 while a spark of it remains ; and, whatever apprehen- 

 sions may be formed of future danger from the dis- 

 tant effects of arsenic, even though it should eradicate 

 a present malady, yet, as no such inconvenience has 

 arisen from the use of it in India, and as experience 



