Leprosy / by W. Munro.

  • Munro, W.
Date:
[1879]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Leprosy / by W. Munro. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    21/108 (page 15)
    were, bo it observed, put out of tbo city; tlien the case of Uzziah, about 7G5 B.C., showiug its continuous existence. Passing from the Jews, we find it among the Persians, who had laws for the expulsion of lepers before the time of Herodotus^ (about 450 B.C.); cases of leuce (XevKr]) or leucoderma were also expelled these cities. This may have had some connexion with the captivity of Israel in 721 B.C., and of Judah in 605 B.C., when they were carried into Assyria and Babylon, neighbouring nations to Persia. I have searched for mention of leprosy among the descriptions of the remains of Nineveh and Babylon in the works of Layard, Smith, and Rawlinson, but have found none. As the records they translate, however, are entirely in the cuneiform character, which was looked on as sacred, and only to be used for commemorating great events, while writings in the common running character were used for ordinary purposes,^ and as it is only the great deeds of conquerors, or the creation of the world (Smith), that is spoken of in such writings as are extant, no conclusion can safely be drawn as to the non-existence of leprosy among the ancient Assyrians and Babylonians from its not being mentioned. Plutarch mentions, in his Life of Artaxerxes II., that his wife (and daughter) Atossa was a leper, about 380 B.C. We have now considered all that is at present known of the ancient history of leprosy in Africa and Asia; we must now pass to the consideration of its introduction into Europe, and its slow spread north and west, trying to connect such spread, so far as may be possible, with events likely to cause it. Passing to Greece, the first country in Europe in which it ap- peared, we look in vain for any proof of its existence there at the time of the Hippocratic writings. There can be no doubt that by Xeirpal (which always occurs in the plural), psoriasis, or some disease nearly allied to it, and not lepra Grtecorum or true leprosy, was meant. The term simply meant scurf or scales. In the first place, ovu^i Xeirpoia-i (translated unguibus scabies), or scruffy nails, are mentioned,^ while the expression ekeirpa rtjv kvu-tiv,^ or scabby bladder, could apply to no symptom of modern leprosy. Secondly, Xeirpal are always mentioned along with other slight diseases, such as lichen and impetigo.^ Again, Celsus, in quoting, and almost translating, a passage in which Xeirpal are spoken of, uses the term pustular ^ as including them along with lichen and alphos, which he describes elsewhere^ as the mildest form of ' T. 138. » Layard, Nineveh and it.g Remains, vol. ii. 342. 3 Hippocrates Opera, ed. Kuhn, torn. ii. p. 160, Ilept iiypuv xpvffioi. * Torn. ii. p. 554, E-TrLd-^/xLov to irefiirTov. Although tliis is not a genuine work of Hippocrates, still it shows the use made of the word about his time. * Upopp-riTiKov, ed. Kuhn, vol. i. p. 232, hook 2d, last paragraph, and Aipopia/xoi, torn. iii. p. 724. « Aphorisms, as in last reference. ' Lib. ii. c. 1. » Lib. v. c. 19.