LEPROSY. 
Little can be faid, that (ball poflefs any intereft, refpeft- 
ing the treatment of the leuce, or JVwifti. leprofy. It was 
generally deemed an incurable difeafe in ancient times ; 
and is almoft unknown, we believ., at prefent in Europe. 
It (till perhaps appears occafionally in Iceland, and other 
northern regions, as a precurfor, or as a modification, of 
the elephantiafis, according to the obfervation of a late 
intelligent traveller in the ifland juft mentioned. He 
ftates, that he faw a woman affefted with a horrible dif¬ 
eafe, which is there called likthrau, by which her face was 
fo corroded as to prefent a moft difgufting fpeftacle. 
“Her legs and hands,” he adds, “were fwollen to-an 
enormous fize, thefe latter being alfo covered with a thick 
and alniojl while {kin lying in'grcat zurink/es." (Hooker’s 
Journal of a Tour in Iceland, p. 186.) The thickened 
and rugous (kin, with the ulcerations of the face, belong 
to elephantiafis; while the morbid whitenefs is charafteriftic 
of leuce. Mr. Hooker alfo expreffes his opinion, that 
this difeafe was not contagious. Profelfor Henfler men¬ 
tions a cafe, which he once faw for a few minutes, and 
which appears to have refembled that mentioned by Mr. 
Hooker: “The whole countenance was puffed up; the 
cuticle was of a dirty white or whitifh-grey colour, dry 
and fhrivelled ; but foft to the touch, as if diftended with 
a watery fluid ; with fiffnres here and there, from which 
forne exudation took place.” The cuticle alfo exhibited 
1 'ome furfuraceous and powdery exfoliations. Henfler re¬ 
marks, that the comparifon applied by Aaron to his filter 
Miriam, in Numbers xii. iz. of fuch a perfon to a dead 
and macerated foetus, is a moft happy illuftration of the 
appearance: “Let her not be as one dead, of whom the 
fle'flt is half confutned, when he cometh out of his mo¬ 
ther’s womb.” The phyfician who attended the patient, 
feen but once by Henfler, compared the appearance of the 
fkin to that of thick, ftiff, dried leather; it was fo thick, 
that an experienced furgeon made feveral attempts to 
open a vein, without fuccefs, in various parts of the body. 
There was great fwelling, ftiffnefs, and tenfion, of the 
eyelids, with a frequent ophthalmia, and great fenfibility 
to light. A thick and foetid cruft covered the fcalp. 
She was twice fo nearly cleared of the leprofy, fo as to go 
out of doors again ; the firft time by large doles of conium 
with fublimate of mercury ; the fecond, by tinfture of 
cantharides, after antimonials and mercurials had increafed 
the fymptoms. A third time {he was improving much, 
under the ufe of fmall dofes of arfenic, which, however, 
was neceffarily omitted ; and {he ultimately died. It is 
worthy of remark, that the leprofy, in this cafe, fufpended 
a pulmonary confumption, the fymptoms of which never 
afterwards returned. 
With refpeft to the leprofy of heufes and of clothes, men¬ 
tioned in the Mofaic code, it is probable that the expref- 
fion was merely analogical, the fpots and difcolorations 
which appeared upon the wails and articles of apparel be¬ 
ing looked upon as refembling the leprous fpots ; while, 
at the fame time, as they were moft probably the confe- 
quence of humidity, the appearance of therri might either 
actually accompany, or precede and prcgnofticate, difeafes 
in the inhabitants of the houfes and wearers of the gar¬ 
ments. See Lev. xiii. xiv. It is no-where faid that the 
difeafe, called leprofy, is capable of being communicated 
to the inhabitants or wearers, in thefe cafes ; but that it 
is unclean. The garments were ordered to be burnt, and 
the ftones to be taken away, and replaced by others, or 
the houfe ultimately to be deftroyed, when, after certain 
infpeftions by the prieft, the greenilh or reddilh fpots in 
them continued. 
The Leprofy of the Greeks is principally characterized, as 
the term imports, by the formation of Jcales on the furface 
of the {kin, which confift of morbid laminae of the cuti¬ 
cle, hard, thickened, opaque, and of a whitifti colour, 
and appear in patches of different fizes, having always 
nearly a circular figure. Such is the defcription of the 
difeafe which has been left us by the Greek writers, and 
which is given as the character of the lepra by the belt 
511 
writer of the fubjeft in our own time ; we mean Dr. Wil- 
lan. Hippocrates has not left any circumftantial detail 
of the fymptoms of lepra, but fpeaks of it, together with 
the alphas, pfora, lickcnes. Sic. as an external blemilh, ra¬ 
ther than a difeafe. The later Greek writers, however, 
although brief in their defcription of lepra, have pointed 
out the diftinftions between it and thofe fimilar affec¬ 
tions, with which it was conjoined by their prc-deceffors. 
Aetius ftates, that it differs from the leuce, or Hebrew le¬ 
profy, in not penetrating deeper than the {kin, and leav¬ 
ing the fubjacent flelh found; from the alphas, which, 
though fcaly, is more fuperficial ; and from the pfora, in 
having large fcales, like thofe of fifh; whereas, in the 
latter, only fcurf, or branny exfoliations, appear. It 
muft be here obferved that the pfora, Amply, lignifies a 
flight fcaly difeafe; and not the /cabies, or itch, which is 
delignated, together with the moift tetter, by the epithet 
ulcerating pfora. Paul us yEginefa, in a chapter On Lepra 
and Flora, obferves, that “ both thefe difeafes are charac¬ 
terized by roughnefs and itching, and a feparation of a 
melancholic humour; but lepra affeCfs the lkin deeply, in 
circular patches, at the fame time throwing off fcales like 
thofe of large fillies; whereas pfora is more fuperficial, va- 
rioufly figured, and throws off little bran-like fubftances.” 
Lib. iii. cap. z. 
In the treatment of lepra, the Greek phyficians always 
premifed bleeding and ftrong purgative medicines ; but 
they feem to have depended chiefly on external appli¬ 
cations, fuch as alum, fulphur, nitre, lupines, cabbage- 
leaves, elm-bark, the dung of goats, mice, and foxes, hu¬ 
man urine, and the gall of bears. They likewife ufed 
feveral vegetable and mineral fubftances, which had a 
corrofive or veficating quality ; as hellebore, colophonia, 
the roots of white lily, onion, bryony, afphodel, ranun¬ 
culus, and anemone, the feeds of muftard, and horfe- 
raddifti, quicklime, vitriol, &c. Remedies of this kind, 
or even blifters, are, however, found to have only a tem¬ 
porary effeft, their operation being foon fucceeded by 
a re-production of the fcaly crufts. Liniments, compofed 
of tar, or of fome mercurial preparations, have been much 
employed, both in ancient and modern practice, with 
fomewhat more beneficial effeft. 
Leprofy of the Middle Ages. —The hiftory of Europe, from 
the fixth to the fifteenth century, is fcarcely lefs full of 
the defcriptions of the phyfical diftreffes of the people, 
occafioned by famine, peltilence, and difeafes of the molt 
loathfome and fatal kind, than of the political and moral 
evils which befet them. Among the maladies of thofe 
times, leprofy, under all the forms to which the term has 
been applied, appears to have exilted fo generally and un- 
ceafingly, as to have claimed a more univerlnl attention 
than even the plague itfelf. It was one of the firft fub- 
jefts, on which the aftive benevolence of the early Chrif- 
tians exerted itfelf, and ultimately it abforbed a very 
large proportion of the wealth of Chriftendom, which 
was appropriated by the donations of the pious to the 
maintenance and relief of thofe who were airlifted with it. 
The general opinion, which was prevalent among the 
Greeks and Romans, that leprous difeafes originated in 
Egypt, is in fome meafure confirmed by the particular 
confideration given to them in the firft hiftory of man ; 
and the more copious and diitinft defcription of thefe 
difeafes, fubfequently given by the Arabian phyficians, 
as well as the accounts publiflied by travellers in more 
recent times, (fee thofe of Profper Alpinus, Tournefort, 
Niebuhr, Bruce, &c.) who witneffed their frequent oc¬ 
currence in that and the neighbouring countries, have 
led to a common belief, that the infeftion was brought 
into Europe, in the eleventh century, by the armies that 
returned from the crufade. But, independently of the 
doubts which may be entertained, in refpeft to the con¬ 
tagious nature of elephantiafis and leuce, there is fufficient 
evidence recorded, efpecially among the tranfaftions of 
the faints, in proof of the prevalence of leprofy in the welt, 
at a much earlier period. Lepers are mentioned in many 
3 public 
