Elephantiasis, or the leprosy of the Middle Ages, is the disease from which most of the prevalent notions concerning leprosy have been derived, and to which the notices of lepers contained in modem books of travels exclusively refer. It is doubtful whether ain- of the lepers cured by Christ (Matt, viii, 3 ; ]\Iark i, 42 ; Luke V, 12, 13) were of this class. In nearly all Oriental towns persons of this description are met with, excluded from intercourse with the rest of the community, and usually confined to a separate quarter of the town. Dr. Kobinson says, with reference to Jerusalem, '"Within the Zion Gate, a httle towards the right, are some miserable hovels, inhabited by persons called lepers. Whether their disease is or is not the leprosy of Scrip- ture I am unable to affirm ; the symptoms described to us were similar to those of elephantiasis. At any rate, they are pitiable objects, and miserable outcasts from society. They all live here together, and intermarry only with each other. The children are said to be healthy until the age of puberty or later, when the dis- ease makes its appearance in a finger, on the nose, or in some like part of the body, and gradually increases as long as the victim survives. They were said often to live to the age of forty or fifty years" {Bib. Res. i, 359). With reference to their presence elsewhere, he remarks, '• There are said to be leprous persons at Nablus (She- chem) as well as at Jerusalem, but we did not here meet with them" (ih. iii, 113 note). On the reputed site of the house of Naaman. at Damascus, stands at the pres- ent day a hospital filled with unfortunate patients, the victims affected like him with leprosy. See Plague.
2. That the Mosaic cases of true leprosy were confined to the former of these two dreadful forms of disease is evident. The reason why this kind of cutaneous dis- temper alone was taken cognizance of by the law doubt- less was because the other was too well marked and ob- vious to require any diagnostic particularization. With the scriptural symptoms before us, let us c(mipare the most recent description of modern leprosy oT the malig- nant type given by an eye-witness who examined this subject: "The scab comes on by degrees, in different parts of the body ; tlie hair falls from the head and eye- brows; the nails loosen, decay, and drop oft"; joint alter joint of the fingers and toes shrink up, and slowly fall
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away ; the gums arc absorbed, and the teeth disappear ; i the nose, the eyes, the tongue, and the palate arc slowly consumed ; and, linally, the wretched victim shrinks into the earth and disappears, while medicine has no power to stay the ravages of this fell disease, or even to mitigate sensibly its tortnrcii'\'lhomson, Lund and Bool; p. Goo, etc.) ; and again, " Sauntering down the Jaffa road, on my approach to the Holy City, in a kuid of dreamv maze, , , . I was startled out of my reverie by the suilden apparition of a cnjwd of beggars, ' sans eyes, sans nose, sans hair, sans everything.' They held up towards me their handless arms, miearthly sounds gur- gled through throats without palates" (ibid. p. 651). We merely ask by what rules of interpretation can we deduce from the Biblical leprosy, which is described as consisting in a rising scab, or bright spot deeper than the general level of the skin, and spreading, sometimes exhibiting live tlesh, and which is non-contagious and curalile, that loathsome and appalling malady described by Dr. Thomson and others?
3. x\s to the leprosy of garments, vessels, and houses, the ancient Jewish tradition is that " leprosy of gar- ments and houses was not to be found in the world gen- erallv, but was a sign and a miracle in Israel to guard them against an evil tongue" (Maimonides, O/i Leprosij, xvi, 10). Some have thought garments worn by lep- rous patients intended. The discharges f)f the diseased skin absorbed into the apparel would, if infection were possible, probably convey disease, and it is known to be highly dangerous in some cases to allow clothes which have so imbibed the discharges of an ulcer to be worn again. The words of Jude, ver. 23, may seem to counte- nance this^ " Hating even the garment spotted by the flesh." But, 1st, no mention of infection occurs; 2d, no connection of the leprous garment with a lejjrous human wearer is hinted at; 3d, this would not help us to ac- count for a leprosy of stone walls and plaster. Thus Dr. Mead («;; stq^.) speaks at any rate plausibly of the leprosy of garments, but becomes unreasonable when he extends his explanation to that of walls. There is more probability in the idea of Sommer (Bibl. A bhandlungen, i, 2"24) that what is meant are the fusting-stains occa- sioned by damp and want of air, and which, when con- firmed, cause the cloth to moidder and fall to pieces. Micliaelis thought that wool from sheeji which had died of a particular disease might fret into holes, and exhib- it an appearance like that described in Lev. xiii, 47, 59 (Michaelis, art. ccxi, iii, 290, 291). But woollen cloth is far from being the only material mentioned ; nay, there is even some reason to think that the words ren- dered in the A.V. " warp" and " woof" are not those dis- tinct parts of the texture, but distinct materials. Linen, however, and leather are distinctly particularized, and the latter not only as regards garments, but " anything (ht. vessel) made of skin" — for instance, bottles. This classing of garments and house-walls with the human epidermis as leprous has moved the mirth of some and the wonder of others. Yet modern science has estab- lished what goes far to vindicate the Mosaic classifica- tion as more philosophical than such cavils. It is now known that there are some skin-diseases which originate in an acarus, and others which proceed from a fungus. In these we may probably find the solution of the para- dox. The analogy between the insect which frets the human skin and that which frets the garment that cov- ers it, between the fungous growth that lines the crev- ices of the epidermis and that which creeps in the inter- stices of masonry, is close enough for the purposes of a ceremonial law, to which it is essential that there should be an arbitrary element intermingled with provisions manifestly reasonable. Michaelis {ibid. art. ccxi, iii, 293-9) has suggested a nitrous efilorescence on the sur- face of the stone, produced by saltiietre, or rather an acid containing it, and issuing in red spots, and cites the ex- ample of a house in Lubeck ; he mentions, also, exfolia- tion of the stone from other causes; but probably these appearances would not be developed without a "greater