ce) and the Elephantiasis, were diseases of
great affinity:[53] in confirmation of which notion the same Galen
observes, that the one sometimes changes into the other.[54] Now these
two distempers are no where better described than by Celsus, who lived
about the time of Augustus Caesar, and having collected the works of
the principal Greek writers in physic and surgery, digested them into
order, and turned them into elegant Latin with great judgment. Thus
he describes the leprous diseases. _Three are three species of the_
Vitiligo. _It is named_ [Greek: alphos], _when it is of a white
colour, with some degree of roughness, and is not continuous, but
appears as if some little drops were dispersed here and there;
sometimes it spreads wider, but with certain intermissions or
discontinuities. The_ [Greek: melas] _differs from this in colour,
because it is black, and like a shadow, but in other circumstances
they agree. The_ [Greek: leuke] _has some similitude with the_ [Greek:
alphos], _but it has more of the white, and runs in deeper: and in it
the hairs are white, and like down. All these spread themselves, but
in some persons quicker, in others slower. The_ Alphos _and_ Melas
_come on, and go off some people at different times; but the_ Leuce
_does not easily quit the patient, whom it has seized.[55] But in the
Elephantiasis_, says the same author, _the whole body is so affected,
that the very bones may be said to be injured. The surface of the body
has a number of spots and tumors on it; and their redness is by
degrees changed into a dusky or blackish colour. The surface of the
skin is unequally thick and thin, hard and soft; and is scaley and
rough: the body is emaciated; the mouth, legs and feet swell. When the
disease is inveterate, the nails on the fingers and toes are hidden by
the swelling._[56] And the accounts left us by the Arabian physicians,
agree with these descriptions. Avicenna, the chief of them, says that
_the Leprosy is a sort of universal cancer of the whole body_.[57]
Wherefore it plainly appears from all that has been said, that the
Syrian Leprosy did not differ in nature, but in degree only, from the
Grecian, which was there called [Greek: leuke]; and that this same
disease had an affinity with the Elephantiasis, sometimes among the
Greeks, but very much among the Arabs. For the climate and manner of
living, very much aggravates all cuticular diseases.

[51] _Prorrhetic. Lib. ii. sub finem._