LEPROSY
to substitute two doves for the second pair of lambs, one for the sin-offering and one for the burnt-offering, and needed only to bring pyth of an ephah of flour for the meal-otfering (Ly 141-32,
In medieval times a man who was a leper was formally excluded from the Church by a funeral mass, in which earth was thrown on his feet as a sign of symbolic burial, the priest Pane ‘sis mortuus mundo, vivens iterum Deo.’ The leper then laid aside his garments in the church and put on a black habit. An account of the rituals ob- served in connexion with lepers is given by Martene (de Rit. Antig. iii. 10). The ceremonies for the readmission of those healed were similar to the penitential and reconciliation ceremonies for the other hiemantes.
Opinions are divided as to the nature of Job’s disease. The Talmudists called it hakok or scratch ing leprosy (Baba Kamma 806). From the descrip- tion of the symptoms (275) and of his isolation (19'*21), it has been supposed to be some form of leprosy * (see MEDICINE). For older opinions on the subject see Wedel, de Morbo Hiobi, Jena, 1687.
Leprosy in Garments.—In Ly 1875. is a descrip- tion of certain reddish or greenish discolorations in garments, woollen, linen, or leathern, which are called zara'ath mam’ereth (v."!), a fretting leprosy, eating a hole in a garment. It is probably the effect of a fungus or mildew, said, but with slight evidence, to be from the use of the wool of dead or diseased sheep (Michaelis, Com. on Laws of Moses, iii. 290), or from the skin of a diseased animal; but this would not account for its attacking linen. Whether it is due to a specific parasite (as Form- stecher supposed, /sr. des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, 1847, No. 32) or not is uncertain, but this is im- probable. If after a week’s seclusion the stain spreads, the garment is pronounced unclean, and is to be burnt. If it have not spread, the fabric is to be washed and shut up for seven days more, when, if it remain cndhatiosl! it is to be burnt; but if it fade after washing, the spot is to be torn out and burnt, and the rest of the garment is to be washed and pronounced clean. Where garments are worn for a long time, as they often are in the East, fungus growths are not unlikely to occur. It has been supposed that the ‘garment spotted by the flesh’ of Jude* refers to this; ipethaps also there is a reference in Job 13% and 30%.
Leprosy in the House.—Certain discoloured
atches on the inner walls of a house are said to be eprous (Ly 1435), These are described as hollow strakes, shéka'drdroth, that is, depressed spots, coloured greenish or reddish. When discovered, the occupant is to empty the house, lest, if pro- nounced unclean, all in the house be defiled. The pak is then called to inspect, and he shuts up the nouse for a week. If it spread in this time, the stones are to be taken out and cast into an unclean place ; the plaster is to be scraped off the walls, and the house re-plastered. If no return take place, the house is clean ; but if it recur, the whole ouse is to be destroyed. Before the cleansed house is inhabited, a cleansing ceremony similar to the first part of the cleansing ceremony of the leper is to be performed. It is probable that this disease is the formation of a flocculent mass of calcium nitrate, such as often takes place when the gases set free from decaying animal matter act on the lime of plaster, and is sometimes called mural salt. This, with an accompaniment of mould or other hyphomycetous fungus, produces an appearance like that described (see Blechrodts Theoret. - Pract. Abhandl. οὐδοῦ die Ursachen der Feuchtigkeit in Gebiuden, Weimar, 1839, 45). Jerome spiritualizes this plague, ‘ Arbitror cum in
* So Davidson, Dillmann, and most modern commentators; ef. Dt 2827.
LESHEM
LEVI 99
parictibus domus lepra esse referatur, hereticam pertidiam notari’ (Hp. xxxiv.).
LireraTuRE.—The bibliography of leprosy is immense, but most of the older treatises are of little value. The best are Bartholinus, de Morbis Biblicis, Hafniw, 1671; also the treatises of Dorndorf (Zurich, 1728), Withof (Duisburg, 1758), Eschenbach (Rostock, 1774), Chamseru (Mém. de la societé d’émulation, Paris, 1810, iii. 335), Jahn (Biblische Archdologie, Wien, 1818, fi. 355), Zensler (Geschichte des abendlaindischen Aussatzes).
For the modern literature the most useful works are Abraham, in Allbutt’s System of Medicine, ii. 41; Report of the Leprosy Commission to India, London, 1893; also Report of the Com- mission to the Cape of Good Hope, 1894-95 ; Hillis, Leprosy in British Guiana, 1881; Carter, Leprosy and Elephantiasis, 1874; Rake, Reports of the Trinidad Asylum, 1889-1893; Danielssen and Boeck, Traité de la Spédalskhed, Paris, 1898 ; Minch, Prokaza na Tuge Rossii, Kiev, 1889; Fox and Far- quhar, Endemic Skin Diseases of India, London, 1876; Wolters in Centralblatt fiir Bakteriologie, xiii. 1893; Simpson, Edin- burgh Medical Journal, 1841-42, vols. lvi., lvii.; Thin, Leprosy, London, 1893; J. R. Bennett, Diseases of the Bible, 1887. For an account of the Knights of St. Lazarus, who had always a leper for their Grand Master, see Hélyot, Ordres Monast. 1721; Mochsen, de med. equit. dignit. ornat. p. 56.
On the Levitical prescriptions regarding leprosy, see, above all, Dillmann-Ryssel, Ez—Lv, p. 553ff., where further refer- ences to the literature of the subject will be found.