r than the skin, when
the disease had been of long standing; a white tumour appeared in the
skin, in which there was quick flesh; the foul eruptions gained ground
daily, and at length covered the whole surface of the body. And the
evil is said to infect, not only the human body, but also the cloaths
and garments, nay (what may seem strange) utensils made of skins or
furs, and even the very walls of the houses. Wherefore there are
precepts laid down for cleansing these also, as well as the lepers.

Medical authors are of different opinions concerning the contagion of
this disease. And whereas neither the Arabian nor Greek physicians,
who have treated largely of the leprosy, have given the least hint of
this extraordinary force of it, whereby it may infect cloaths and
walls of houses; the Rabbin doctors dispute, whether that which seized
the Jews, was not intirely different from the common leprosy; and they
all affirm, that _there never appeared in the World, a leprosy of
cloaths and houses, except only in Judea, and among the sole people of
Israel_.

For my part, I shall now freely propose, what I think most probable on
the subject. One kind of contagion is more subtile than another; for
there is a sort, which is taken into the body by the very breath; such
as I have elsewhere said to exist in the plague, small pox, and other
malignant fevers. But there is another sort, which infects by contact
alone; either internal, as the venom of the venereal disease; or
external, as that of the itch, which is conveyed into the body by
rubbing against cloaths, whether woollen or linnen. Wherefore the
leprosy, which is a species of the itch, may pass into a sound man in
this last manner; perhaps also by cohabitation; as Fracastorius has
observed, that _a consumption is contagious, and is contracted by
living with a phthisical person, by the gliding of the corrupted and
putrefied juices_ of the sick _into the lungs of the sound man_.[47]
And _Aretaeus_ is of the same opinion with regard to the Elephantiasis,
a disease nearly allied to the Leprosy: for he gives this caution,
"That it is not less dangerous to converse and live with persons
affected with this distemper, than with those infected with the
plague; because the contagion is communicated by the inspired[48]
air."

[47] _De morbis contagiosis. Lib. ii. Cap. ix._

[48] _De causis diuturnorum morborum, et de curationibus
eorundem, Lib. ii. Cap. xiii._

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