The Rabbinic comments on these regulations in Negqaim, Siphra, and Mechilta are ve rolix, and add nothing to our real knowledge of the disease. R. Chanina recognizes 16 kinds; R. Dosa, 32; and Akiba, 72. In Jalkut on Job 28% man is said to be made up half of water and half of blood ; if he sin, this balance is disturbed,—either the water becomes excessive and he is dropsical, or the blood inereases and he becomes leprous. Many of the later commentators, medical and otherwise, are not much better. See Mason Good, Study of Medicine, iv.
For those pronounced unclean there was n*
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farther seclusion; but they are to be excluded from the community, to live outside the towns, with rent clothes (in the case of men ; women were not to rend their garments, Sota ii. 8), and the hair of their head going loose. They are directed to cover their upper lip, and to ery ‘unclean.’ This exclusion is represented as put in practice when the tabernacle was constructed (Nu 5%, P), and Miriam was one of those temporarily shut out in the early days of the law (Nu 12, JE). The Deuteronomic code refers to these laws (Dt 24°). The four lepers of 2 K 7% were thus outside Samaria even during the siege. According to Negaim xii. 11, if lepers entered into a house, they rendered it unclean (see also Kelim i. 4); or, if under a tree, they defiled any one passing beneath its shade. As they could not enter a walled town, they were excluded from synagogue services there; but in unwalled towns there was often a place set apart for them in the synagogue, into which they could enter before the rest of the congregation ; but the could not leave until every one else hiad departed. Any transgression of these rules was punished by 40 stripes (see Otho, Lex. Rabbin. 324).
The Jews regarded leprosy as a contagious disease, and recent investigations have confirmed this opinion, although it is not communicated ve easily, and seems to have a long incubation period. It is produced by a specific sechizomycetous fungus, Bacillus lepre, discovered by Hansen in 1871, which is of very minute size. These organisms re- tain their vitality for along time. K6bner found them living in a piece of leprous tissue that had lain forgotten, wrapped in a piece of paper, for ten years. It is a peculiarly human parasite, the result of many experiments showing that it is not communicable to animals by inoculation. The bacillus has been found, though sparingly, in the earth of a pathway frequented by lepers at the Almora Asylum. (hee ike that of Damien show that it is communicable to healthy persons. For other instances see Abraham in Rubutt’s System of Medicine, ii. 41. It is interesting to note that
almet long ago supposed leprosy to be due to organisms, which he describes as animalcule that eat the skin from within (Comm. on Levit.).
It was probably a fairly common disease among the Jews (Lk 4”), although not many cases are mentioned; but there are more references to it than to any other ailment. It has been supposed, though without any reason, that the kiln-work in Egypt fostered it in the days before the Exodus. Buxtorf, however, says it is not as common among the Jews as among other peoples, and ascribes this to their separateness, and to their abstinence especially from swine’s flesh (see Tacitus, Hist. y. 4). Inthe NT there are records of only twelve cases; the ten lepers in Lk 1713, the leper in Mt 8? whom our Lord touched (cf. Mk 1, Lk 5"), and Simon the leper (Mt 26°, Mk 14%); but these are only specially selected cases, for He commanded His disciples to cleanse the lepers (Mt 10°; see also Mt 11° and Lk 7”).
The course of the disease is slow, especially in the early stages; there are cases on record of persons who lived gs lepers for 40 years. Observa- tions in Trinidad gave an average of mepely 9 years as the duration of the disease (Beavan Rake). According to Danielssen, in Norway, and Carter, ‘in Bombay, the average duration of life in the nodular form is about 9 years, and in the form which affects the nerves and causes anesthesia (the commonest form in the East) it is 184 years. Cures are rare; the official report for Norway gives 38 cures during the period 1881-85 (the total number of lepers there in 1892 was 500), Simon
the leper may have been one of those cured by Christ (for traditions see Ambrose, Comm. on Li: 6; vor. W.—7
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Theophylact in Mt 26 ; Nieephorus, HE i. 27). In the early stages there are often few symptoms and little discomfort, and sometimes ‘the eruption may vanish altogether, giving rise to illusory hopes of cure’ (Abraham). It is therefore easy to understand how a great general like Naaman might retain his office although a leper (2 K 5}), (See in this connexion Jos. Ant. II. xi. 4). ing Rokert the Bruce, who according to Ker (ii. 357) died of this disease, was apparently suffering from it when he held the Parliament at Cambus- kenneth, and organized his last invasion of Eng- land. According to a doubtful tradition the emperor Constantine was a leper; see Zonaras, Annales, xiii. ο. 3.