There was a
hospital for female lepers in the diocese of Lincoln; a noble one near
Durham; three in London and Southwark; and perhaps many more in or near
our great towns and cities. Moreover, some crowned heads, and other
wealthy and charitable personages, bequeathed large legacies to such poor
people as languished under this hopeless infirmity.

It must, therefore, in these days be to a humane and thinking person a
matter of equal wonder and satisfaction, when he contemplates how nearly
this pest is eradicated, and observes that a leper now is a rare sight.
He will, moreover, when engaged in such a train of thought, naturally
inquire for the reason. This happy change, perhaps, may have originated
and been continued from the much smaller quantity of salted meat and fish
now eaten in these kingdoms; from the use of linen next the skin; from
the plenty of better bread; and from the profusion of fruits, roots,
legumes, and greens, so common in every family. Three or four centuries
ago, before there were any enclosures, sown-grasses, field-turnips, or
field-carrots, or hay, all the cattle which had grown fat in summer, and
were not killed for winter use, were turned out soon after Michaelmas to
shift as they could through the dead months; so that no fresh meat could
be had in winter or spring. Hence the marvellous account of the vast
stores of salted flesh found in the larder of the eldest Spencer in the
days of Edward II., even so late in the spring as the 3rd May. It was
from magazines like these that turbulent barons supported in idleness
their riotous swarms of retainers ready for any disorder or mischief. But
agriculture is now arrived at such a pitch of perfection that our best
and fattest meats are killed in the winter, and no man need eat salted
flesh, unless he prefers it, that has money to buy fresh.

One cause of this distemper might be, no doubt, the quantity of wretched
fresh and salt fish consumed by the commonalty at all seasons as well as
in Lent, which our poor now would hardly be persuaded to touch.

The use of linen changes, shirts or shifts, in the room of sordid and
filthy woollen, long worn next the skin, is a matter of neatness
comparatively modern, but must prove a great means of preventing
cutaneous ails. At this very time woollen, instead of linen, prevails
among the poorer Welsh, who are subject to foul eruptions.

The plenty of good wheaten bread that now is found among all ranks of