occurs a considerable difficulty. For Moses says, "If in the
leprosy there be observed a white tumour in the skin, and it have
turned the hair white in it, and there be quick flesh within the
tumour; it is an old leprosy in the skin of his flesh. But if the
leprosy spread broad in the skin, and cover the whole skin of the
diseased from his head even to his feet, the person shall be
pronounced[49] clean." But the difficulty contained in this passage
will vanish, if we suppose, as it manifestly appears to me, that it
points out two different species of the disease; the one in which the
eroded skin was ulcerated, so that the quick flesh appeared
underneath; the other, which spread on the surface of the skin only in
the form of rough scales. And from this difference it happened, that
the former species was, and the latter was not, contagious. For these
scales, being dry and light like bran, do not penetrate into the skin;
whereas the purulent matter issuing from the ulcers infects the
surface of the body. But concerning the differences of cuticular
diseases, I heartily recommend to the reader's perusal, what Johannes
Manardus, equally valuable for his medical knowledge and the purity of
his Latin, has written upon the subject.[50]

[49] _Levit. Chap. xiii. v. 10 &c._

[50] _Epist. Medicinal. Lib. vii. Epist. ii._

There is no time, in which this disease was not known; but it was
always more severe in Syria and Egypt, as they are hotter countries,
than in Greece and other parts of Europe; and it is even at this day
frequent in those regions. For I have been assured by travellers, that
there are two hospitals for the leprous alone in Damascus. And there
is a fountain at Edessa, in which great numbers of people affected
with this cuticular foulness wash daily, as was the ancient custom.

Moreover we read the principal signs, which occur in the description
of the Mosaic leprosy, excepting only the infection of the cloaths and
houses (of which by and by) recorded by the Greek Physicians.
Hippocrates himself calls the [Greek: leuke] or white leprosy [Greek:
Phoinikie nousos] the Phoenician disease.[51] For that the word
[Greek: phthinike] ought to be read [Greek: Phoinikie], appears
manifestly from Galen in his _Explicatio linguarum Hippocratis_; where
he says that [Greek: phoinike nousos] is a disease which is _frequent
in Phoenicia and other eastern regions_.[52] In the foregoing chapter I
said that the Leprosy (Leu