LEPROSY. 503 
3§, Lepraria vitiligo: whrtifh, very thin, membranace¬ 
ous ; mattes roundifh, a little convex, variegated grey and 
black. 
19. Lepraria timidula: leprous, fmooth, cracked, whit- 
ifli; mattes minute, crowded, oblong-deformed, tumid, 
rufous-brown. 
IV. In dijlinlpt or clvjlered white globular mealy /pots, generally 
margined ; frond crujlaceous. Variolaria. 
ao. Lepraria faginea: cruft leprous, thin, glabrous, rug¬ 
ged, cracked, greyilh-white; tubercles hemifphserical, 
fcattered, pure white. 
zi. Lepraria orbiculata: leprous, thin, granular, orbi¬ 
cular, bordered, greyifh-white; tubercles central, minute, 
flattiffi, margined, of the fame colour. /?. Blackifh; tu¬ 
bercles pure white. 
22. Lepraria afpergilla : tartareous, thin, rather folid, 
determined, with a fmooth circumference, thinly crack¬ 
ed, grey ; tubercles fcattered, rather ob.fc.ure, fuperficial, 
whiter. ( 3 . Eft'ufe, greyifti white, {lightly cracked, fmooth- 
ifh; tubercles apprefled, fomewhat margined, round, de¬ 
formed, rather confluent, of the fame colour. 
23. Lepraria ercina: tartareous, fomewhat determined, 
whitifh, broken into patches, mealy, with a fmooth cracked 
border; tubercles cluftered, irregular, pure white. 
24.. Lepraria laftea: tartareous, determined, with a 
warty area, fmooth, white, with a fomewhat-radiate cre- 
nate-lobed border; tubercles nearly marginal, pure white. 
25. Lepraria difcoidea : leprous, mealy, white; tuber¬ 
cles becoming concave, deformed, margined, of the lame 
colour. 
26. Lepraria thelena: irregular, very thin, with a warty 
area, fomewhat mealy, pure white ; tubercles becoming 
conoid, bearing the fruiSlification at top, which is very 
minute and of the fame colour. 
27. Lepraria leucoftigma: blackifh-brown, effufe; tu¬ 
bercles fcattered, concave, minute, white. 
28. Lepraria viridula: thin, mealy, greenifh-grey; tu¬ 
bercles hemifpherical, green. 
LEPRE'OS, in fabulous hiftory, a fon of Pyrgeus, 
who built a town in Elis, which he called after his own 
name. He laid a wager that lie would eat as much as 
Hercules; upon which he killed an ox and ate it up. He 
afterwards challenged Hercules to a trial of ftrength ; and 
was killed. 
LE'PRIA, an ifland on the coaft of Ionia, mentioned 
by Pliny. 
LEPRO'SE, adj. See Leprous. 
LEPROS'ITY, f. [from leprous.'] Squamous difeafe.— 
If the crudities, impurities, and leprofties, of metals were 
cured, they w : ould become gold. Bacon's Nat. Hijl. 
LEPRO'SO AMOVEN'DO, /. in law', an ancient writ 
that lay to remove a leper, or lazar, who thruflf himfelf 
into the company of his neighbours in any parifli, either 
in the church or at other public meetings, to their an¬ 
noyance.- 
LEP'ROSY,/ [from Uiriq, Gr. a fcale.J A loathfome 
diftemper, which covers the body with a kind of white 
fcales.— Between the malice of my enemies and other 
men’s miftakes, I put as great a difference as between the 
itch of novelty and the leprofy of difloyalty. King Charles. 
—Authors, upon the firft entrance of the pox, looked 
upon it fo highly infeifious, that they ran away from it 
as much as the Jews did from the leprofy. Wifeman's Surgery. 
Itches, blains. 
Sow all the Athenian bofoms; and their crop 
Be general leprofy. Shakefp. Timon. of Athens. 
The Jewifh law excluded lepers from communion with 
mankind, banifhing them into the country or uninhabited 
places, without excepting even their kings'. When a le¬ 
per was cleanfed, he came to the city-gate, and was there 
examined by the priefts ; after this he took two live birds 
to the temple, and fattened one of them to a wifp of ce¬ 
dar and hyflbp tied together with a fcarlet ribbon ; the 
¥ oh. XII. No. 848. 
fecond bird was killed by the leper, and the blood of k 
received into a veflel of water; with this water the priett 
fprinkled the leper, dipping the udfp and the live bird 
into it; this done, the live bird was Jet go; and the le¬ 
per, having undergone this ceremony, was again admitted 
into lociety and to the ufe of tilings, facred. Lev. xiii. 46, 
47. xiv. 1, 2, &c. 
This naturally leads us to inquire into the.nature of 
the Leprofy of the Hebrews, which appears, from the writings 
of Mofes, to have prevailed extenfively among that peo¬ 
ple after they quitted Egypt under his guidance. Some 
have confidered it as a difeafe peculiar to the liebraw 
people, differing from every malady with which other na r 
tions have been afflifted, and fent by Providence upon them 
as a fupernatural punifhment. Many of the ancient hif- 
torians alfert, that the Hebrews were expelled the Egyp¬ 
tian territories, in confequence of the general, or even uni- 
verfal, prevalence of the leprofy among them. Manetho, 
an Egyptian, who wrote a hiftory of the religion of his an- 
celtors, makes this aflertion; and a fimilar account is given 
by Lyfimachus, Plutarch, Juftin, Tacitus, and others. The 
learned Jewifh writer, Jofephus, however, treats thele 
accounts as altogether fabulous; and ftates fome fubftan- 
tial arguments in proof of their abfurdity and falfehood. 
Antiq. Jud. lib. iii. and Contra Apion, lib, i. The concur¬ 
rent tettimony of the hiftorians, phylicians, and poets, of 
antiquity, indeed, goes to prove, that the inhabitants of 
Egypt, for many ages, were fubjeft to elephantia/is, and 
that, in faff, the difeafe originated on the borders of the 
Nile ; and modern obfervation has afeertained its more 
recent prevalence in the fame countries. This circum- 
(tance feems to have led fome writers to conclude, that 
the Hebrew leprofy was the elephantiafis, or lepra Arabum, 
as it has been called. But a confideration of the fymp- 
toms, enumerated by the divine lawgiver, fanefions the 
conclufion, which the majority of writers have drawn 
upon the fubjeff, that it was neither the elephantiafis, in 
its ordinary tubercular form, on the one hand, nor the 
fcaly lepra of the Greeks (which, however, it more nearly 
refembled in its external appearance) on the other; but 
that it was the leuce of the Greek writers, the vitiligo of 
Celfus, and the white albaras of Avicenna, and the other 
Arabian phyficians. It will be fufficient to compare the 
obfervations of Avicenna, when pointing out the diftinc- 
tion between the white albaras and the alguada (morphcea 
of the tranflators), with the marks of diferimination de¬ 
tailed in the book of Leviticus, refpeffing the unclean le¬ 
profy, and thofe forms of it which were not deemed un¬ 
clean, in order to be convinced that the fame difeafe is, in 
both cafes, under the view of the writer. Avicenna 
ftates, that “ both fpecies of alguada (viz. alphas and melas 
of trte Greeks) are confined to the fkin, and merely fuper¬ 
ficial ; but the albaras affefts both the fkin and the flefli, 
even to the bones.” And, again ; “ There is this diffe-r- 
ence between the white alguada and the white albaras, 
that hairs grow upon the fkin affefted with the former, 
and they are of a black or brown colour; but thofe which 
grow in the albaras are always white ; and at the fame 
time the fkin is more deprefied or funk than the reft of 
the furface of the body. Some deprefllon may, perhaps, 
occur in the gaada, but it is very flight. Moreover, a 
pundhire of the fkin with a needle draws blood in the 
guada ; but no blood follows it in the baras, only a watery 
humidity; and this is incurable.” Canon. Med. lib. iv. 
In the five or fix fpecies of leprofy deferibed by Mofes, 
namely, as commencing with a fcab or bright fpot, a 
fwelling, a rawnefs of the flefli, a boil or ulcer, and a 
burning or inflammation, as well as the leprofy in the 
head, and that connected with baldnefs, it will be ob- 
ferved, that the two charafteriftic fymptoms are, the wkite- 
nefs of the hair and the deprejfion of the Jkin conjoined, as 
in the quotation from Avicenna. The whitenefs of the 
furface alone, without change of colour in the hair, or 
any deprefllon (as it occurs in the alphos, morphaa, or le¬ 
pra Guecorum), is exprefsly afferted not to conftitute an 
6 O unclean 
