214 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



LETTER XXXVII 



Selborne, Jan. S, 1778. 

 Dear Sir, 



There was in this village several years ago a miserable 

 pauper, who, from his birth, was afflicted with a leprosy, 

 as far as we are aware of a singular kind, since it affected 

 only the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet. This 

 scaly eruption usually broke out twice in the year, at the 

 spring and fall ; and, by peeling away, left the skin so 

 thin and tender that neither his hands or feet were able 

 to perform their functions ; so that the poor object was 

 half his time on crutches, incapable of employ, and 

 languishing in a tiresome state of indolence and in- 

 activity. His habit was lean, lank, and cadaverous. In 

 this sad plight he dragged on a miserable existence, a 

 burden to himself and his parish, which was obliged to 

 support him till he was relieved by death at more than 

 thirty years of age. 



The good women, who love to account for every defect 

 in children by the doctrine of longing, said that his 

 mother felt a violent propensity for oysters, which she 

 was unable to gratify ; and that the black rough scurf on 

 his hands and feet were the shells of that fish. We 

 knew his parents, neither of which were lepers ; his father 

 in particular lived to be far advanced in years. 



In all ages the leprosy has made dreadful havoc among 

 mankind. The Israelites seem to have been greatly 

 afflicted with it from the most remote times ; as appears 

 from the peculiar and repeated injunctions given them 

 in the Levitical Law.* Nor was the rancour of this foul 

 di-sorder much abated in the last period of their common- 



* See Leviticus, chap. xiii. and xlv. 



