436 
JOURNAL OF AN KM BASS Y 
disorder to any thing peculiar in the climate, 
the food, or the habits of the people. It occurs 
in the moist climate of Uangoon, and the drier 
climate of Ava ; and, generally speaking, the 
country throughout is healthy. The effectual 
price of labour is high, and consequently the 
Burman peasantry are, upon the whole, well fed, 
clad, and housed. For an Asiatic people, they 
are an active and athletic race, remarkably free 
from bodily infirmities ; but, above all, they are 
free from diseases of the skin to so remarkable 
a degree, as to strike every stranger who has ob¬ 
served them. With respect to the frequency of 
leprosy amongst them, it ought, however, to be 
observed, that a stranger who has visited only 
the principal towns may easily be deceived, and 
led to consider it greater than it really is, owing 
to the circumstance of the lepers naturally com¬ 
ing to the vicinity of these for the facility of 
getting charity. A number of those whom we 
examined this morning were certainly natives 
of distant parts of the country. 
The Burman leprosy appears to be the same 
with the worst form of that disease among the 
Jews, and also with the leprosy of the middle 
ages in Europe; and it is singular, how nearly 
alike is the treatment of the unfortunate per¬ 
sons labouring under it, and the prejudices which 
