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Leprosy

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leprosy

(Greek: lepo, peel)

A chronic disease of an infectious nature, caused by the germ bacillus leprae, which produces bodily deformations and mutilations, including destruction of tissue, and bodily decomposition, motor paralysis, anaesthesia, etc. It is fatal in the majority of cases although various methods of treatment, including the application of chaulmoogra oil which has met with appreciable success, have reduced the mortality. Bad nutrition and insanitary conditions are favorable to its generation and propagation, and it is endemic in certain localities, as parts of Africa, Arabia, China, Japan, India, Italy, Spain, etc.; it is also found in the United States, particularly in Louisiana and California. It was carried to the Western world from Egypt where it was believed to be contagious and hereditary (2 Kings 29) and entailed exclusion from the community, the afflicted being shunned as “unclean.” The New Testament contains references to the miraculous cure of lepers by Our Lord, notably the healing of ten at one time (Luke 17). In the early Christian era it was prevalent throughout Europe and strict regulations regarding lepers were adopted; they were prohibited from public meeting places and churches, although in some of the latter they were permitted to watch services celebrated on the main altar by means of a hagioscope, or small opening in the chancel wall of the church. They were obliged to carry wooden clappers to signal their approach, and were gradually segregated in leper houses or “Lazaries,” under the administration of religious communities, each of which had its own churchyard, chapel, and ecclesiastics. The view that leprosy is due to the consumption of fish and that hence the Church is responsible for much of the disease is exploded by the fact that it is not as prevalent in Catholic as in other localities, and Catholics, though obliged to abstain from meat, are not obliged to eat fish. The Church which from very early times has promoted the spiritual and temporal welfare of the leper continues the work in various leper colonies, including Carville, Louisiana, where the Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul minister to them, and Molokai, scene of the heroic labors of Father Damien and “Brother” Joseph Dutton.

Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary

Leprosy

Leprosy proper, or lepra tuberculosa, in contradistinction to other skin diseases commonly designated by the Greek word lepra (psoriasis, etc.), is a chronic infectious disease caused by the bacillus leprœ, characterized by the formation of growths in the skin, mucous membranes, peripheral nerves, bones, and internal viscera, producing various deformities and mutilations of the human body, and usually terminating in death.

I. HISTORY OF THE DISEASE

Leprosy was not uncommon in India as far back as the fifteenth century B. C. (Ctesias, Pers., xli; Herodian, I, i, 38), and in Japan during the tenth century B. C. Of its origin in these regions little is known, but Egypt has always been regarded as the place whence the disease was carried into the Western world. That it was well known in that country is evidenced by documents of the sixteenth century B. C. (Ebers Papyrus); ancient writers attribute the infection to the waters of the Nile (Lucretius, “De Nat. rer.”, VI, 1112) and the unsanitary diet of the people (Galen). Various causes helped to spread the disease beyond Egypt. Foremost among these causes Manetho places the Hebrews, for, according to him, they were a mass of leprosy of which the Egyptians rid their land (” Hist. Græc. Fragm.”, ed. Didot, II, pp. 578-81). Though this is romance, there is no doubt but at the Exodus the contamination had affected the Hebrews. From Egypt Phœnician sailors also brought leprosy into Syria and the countries with which they had commercial relations, hence the name “Phœnician disease” given it by Hippocrates (Prorrhetics, II); this seems to be borne out by the fact that we find traces of it along the Ionian coasts about the eighth century B. C. (Hesiod, quoted by Eustathius in “Comment. on Odyss.”, p. 1746), and in Persia towards the fifth century B. C. (Herodotus). The dispersion of the Jews after the Restoration (fifth century) and the campaigns of the Roman armies (Pliny, “Hist. Nat.”, XXVI) are held responsible for the propagation of the disease in Western Europe: thus were the Roman colonies of Spain, Gaul, and Britain soon infected.

In Christian times the canons of the early councils (Ancyra, 314), the regulations of the popes (e. g., the famous letter of Gregory II to St. Boniface), the laws enacted by the Lombard King Rothar (seventh century), by Pepin and Charlemagne (eighth century), the erection of leper-houses at Verdun, Metz, Maestricht (seventh century), St. Gall (eighth century), and Canterbury (1096) bear witness to the existence of the disease in Western Europe during the Middle Ages. The invasions of the Arabs and, later on, the Crusades greatly aggravated the scourge, which spared no station in life and attacked even royal families. Lepers were then subjected to most stringent regulations. They were excluded from the church by a funeral Mass and a symbolic burial (Martène, “De Rit. ant.,” III, x). In every important community asylums, mostly dedicated to St. Lazarus and attended by religious, were erected for the unfortunate victims. Matthew Paris (1197-1259) roughly estimated the number of these leper-houses in Europe at 19,000, France alone having about 2000, and England over a hundred. Such lepers as were not confined within these asylums had to wear a special garb, and carry “a wooden clapper to give warning of their approach. They were forbidden to enter inns, churches, mills, or bakehouses, to touch healthy persons or eat with them, to wash in the streams, or to walk in narrow footpaths” (Creighton). (See below: IV. Leprosy in the Middle Ages.) Owing to strict legislation, leprosy gradually disappeared, so that at the close of the seventeenth century it had become rare except in some few localities. At the same time it began to spread in the colonies of America and the islands of Oceanica. “It is endemic in Northern and Eastern Africa, Madagascar, Arabia, Persia, India, China and Japan, Russia, Norway and Sweden, Italy, Greece, France, Spain, in the islands of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is prevalent in central and South America, Mexico, in the West Indies, the Hawaiian and Philippine islands, Australia and New Zealand. It is also found in New Brunswick, Canada. In the United States, the majority of cases occur in Louisiana and California, while from many other States cases are occasionally reported, notably from New York, Ohio Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Missouri, the Carolinas and Texas. In Louisiana leprosy has been gaining foothold since 1758, when it was introduced by the Acadians” (Dyer). According to the statistics furnished by delegates to the second international conference on leprosy (at Bergen, Norway, Sept., 1909), there are approximately 200,000 cases of the disease throughout the world: India, it is stated, coming first with 97,340 cases; the United States contributing 146 cases, and the Panama Canal Zone the minimum of 7 cases.

II. PATHOLOGY

How leprosy originated is unknown: bad nutrition, bad hygiene, constitutional conditions (tuberculosis, alcoholism, probably heredity, etc.) seem to favour its production and propagation. The disease is immediately caused by the infection of the bacillus leprœ, a small rod bacillus from 003 mm. to .007 mm. in length and .0005 mm. in diameter, straight or slightly curved, with pointed, rounded, or club-shaped extremities, usually found in short chains or beads. This bacillus, discovered in 1868 by Hansen, has been described since 1880 by many specialists, particularly by Byron, who succeeded in cultivating it in agar-agar (Ceylon moss). It is present in all leprous tissues and the secretions (urine excepted; Köbner claims to have seen it in the blood), and has been repeatedly observed in the earth taken from the graves of lepers (Brit. Lepr. Commission of India). There is on record only one case — and this somewhat doubtful — of leprosy communicated by artificial inoculation. As to whether it is contagious from person to person, this was for years a much mooted question among specialists; although a scientific demonstration of contagiousness is so far impossible — the mode of contamination being as yet unascertained, as well as the period of incubation of the germ — still there are unimpeachable practical proofs of contagion, such as the effect of isolation on the spread of the disease, and cases of healthy persons contracting the disease when exposed (Fathers Damien and Boglioli, nurses, and attendants), even accidentally, as in the instance of a medical student who cut himself while making a post-mortem on a leper. In the international conference at Bergen, these evidences were deemed convincing enough to call for a declaration that the disease be considered contagious.

The period of incubation is “estimated at from a few weeks to twenty and even forty years” (Dyer). Like most infections, leprosy has a preliminary stage, uncertain in its character: there are loss of appetite, dyspepsia, and nausea, neuralgia, rheumatic and articular pains, fever, intermittent or irregular, unaccountable lassitude and anxiety. These premonitory symptoms, which may last for months, are followed by periodical eruptions. Blotches, first reddish, then brown with a white border, appear and disappear in various parts of the body; sooner or later small tumours, filled with a yellowish substance fast turning to a darker hue, rise sometimes on the joints, but oftener on the articulations of the fingers and toes. These tumours, however, are not yet specifically leprous; at the end they may leave permanent spots, pale or brown, or nodules. Then the disease, manifested by the apparition of specifically leprous formations, diverges into different varieties, according as it affects the skin and mucous membranes (cutaneous leprosy), or the nerves (anæsthetic), or both (mixed, or complete); each of these varieties, however, merges frequently into the others, and it is sometimes difficult to draw the line between cases.

Cutaneous leprosy is either macular or tubercular. The former variety is characterized by dark (L. maculosa nigra), or whitish (L. m. alba) spots, usually forming on the place of the old blotches; the eruption, at first only intermittent, turns finally into an obstinate ulcer with constant destruction of tissue; the ulceration usually begins at the joints of the fingers and toes, which drop off joint by joint, leaving a well-healed stump (L. mutilans); it is sometimes preceded by, and ordinarily attended with, anæsthesia, which, starting at the extremities, extends up the limbs, rendering them insensible to heat and cold, pain, and even touch. In the tubercular type, nodosities of leprous tissue, which may reach the size of a walnut, are formed out of the blotches. They may occur on any part of the body, but usually affect the face (forehead, eyelids, nose, lips, chin, cheeks, and ears), thickening all the features and giving them a leonine appearance (leontiasis, satyriasis). Tubercular leprosy develops rapidly, and, when attacking the extremities, its destructive process has the same effect of ulceration, mutilation, and deformity as has been mentioned above. Scarcely different from the preceding in the period of invasion is the course of anæsthetic leprosy, one of the characteristic symptoms of which is the anæsthesia of the little finger, which may occur even before any lesions appear. The ulcer, at first usually localized on one finger, attacks one by one the other fingers, then the other hand; in some cases the feet are affected at the same time, in others their ulceration follows that of the hands. Neuralgic pains accompany the invasion, and a thickening of certain nerves may be observed; motor-paralysis gradually invades the face, the hands, and the feet. Consequent upon this, the muscles of the face become contracted and distorted by atrophy; ectropion of the lower lids prevents the patient from shutting his eyes; the lips become flabby, and the lower one drops. The sense of touch and muscle-control being lost, the hands are unable to grasp, and the contraction affecting the muscles of the forearm produces the claw-hand. In the lower extremities analogous effects are produced, resulting first in a shuffling gait and finally in complete incapacity of motion. Then the skin shrinks, the hair, teeth, and nails fall, and the lopping-off process of necrosis may extend to the loss of the entire hand or foot. The mixed variety of leprosy is the combination and complete development of the two types just described. In all cases a peculiar offensive smell, recalling that of the dissecting-room mixed with the odour of goose feathers — the authors of the Middle Ages compared it to that of the male-goat — is emitted by the Leper, and renders him an object of repulsion to all who come near him. Add the torture of an unquenchable thirst in the last stages of the disease, and, as the patient usually preserves his mind unaffected to the end, the utter prostration resulting from his complete helplessness and the sight of the slow and unrelenting process of decomposition of his body, and it is easy to understand how truly, in the Book of Job (xviii, 13), leprosy is called “the firstborn of death”.

The average course of leprosy is about eight years, the mixed type being more rapidly concluded. “Death is the ordinary conclusion of every case, which may come (in 38 per cent of cases) from the exhaustive effects of the disease, from an almost necessary septicæmia, or from some intercurrent disease, as nephritis (in 22.5 per cent); from pulmonary diseases including phthisis (in 17 per cent), diarrhœa (in 10 per cent), anæmia (in 5 per cent), remittent fever (in 5 per cent), peritonitis (in 2.5 per cent)” (Dyer).

So far leprosy has baffled all the efforts of medical science: almost every conceivable method of treatment has been attempted, yet with no appreciable success. Occasionally the treatment has been followed by such long periods of remission of the disease (fifteen or twenty years) as might lead one to believe the cure altogether complete; still, specialists continue to hold that in such instances the virulence of the bacillus is, through causes unknown, merely suspended, and may break forth again. It being admitted that the disease is both contagious and preventible, there seems to be no doubt that means of public protection should be provided. To answer this purpose, several countries (Norway and Sweden in particular) have by legislation ordered the isolation of lepers. In some other countries the Governments encourage, and, more or less generously, subsidize private establishments. Of all the states of the Union, Louisiana is the only one to have taken any definite steps: it partly supports the leper-home at Carville where some seventy patients are housed under the care of the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul (Emmitsburg). Some, not unwisely, think that if the federal authorities do not deem it right to interfere, individual states, especially those which, like California are exposed to a constant danger of infection, should take means of preventing the spread of the disease.

[Note: In fact leprosy has been easily and completely curable using multi-drug therapy (MDT) for many years now. Using MDT, the global prevalence of the disease has fallen by 90% since 1985 with over 12 million patients cured worldwide since that date. Moreover, the gross disabilities which were such a feature of the disease for millennia (and are featured so often in the Bible) are now becoming a thing of the past, with early detection and treatment. Leprosaria and the physical separation of patients from their families are completely unnecessary.]

III. LEPROSY IN THE BIBLE

The foregoing sketch of the pathology of leprosy may serve to illustrate some of the many passages of the Bible where the disease is mentioned. From the epoch of the sojourn of the people of God in the desert down to the times of Christ, leprosy seems to have been prevalent in Palestine: not only was it in some particular cases (Numbers 12:10; 2 Kings 5:27; Isaiah 53:4) looked upon as a Divine punishment, but at all times the Hebrews believed it to be contagious and hereditary (2 Samuel 3:29); hence it was considered as a cause of defilement, and involved exclusion from the community. From this idea proceeded the minute regulations of Lev., xiii, xiv, concerning the diagnosis of the disease and the restoration to social and religious life of those who were cleansed. All decisions in this matter pertained to the priest, before whom should appear personally both those who were suspected of leprosy and those who claimed to be healed. If, at the first examination, the signs — coloured nodule, blister, shining spot (xiii, 2), discoloration of the hair (3) — were manifest, isolation was pronounced at once; but if some of the signs were wanting, a seven-days quarantine was ordered, at the term of which a new inspection had to take place; should then the symptoms remain doubtful, another week’s quarantine was imposed. The appearance of “the living flesh” in connexion with whitish blotches was deemed an evident sign of the infection (10). White formations covering the whole body are no sign of leprosy unless “live flesh” (ulceration) accompany them; in the latter case, the patient was isolated as suspect, and if the sores, which might be only temporary pustules, should heal up, he had to appear again before the priest, who would then declare him clean (12-17). A white or reddish nodule affecting the cicatrix of an ulcer or of a burn would be regarded a doubtful sign of leprosy, and condemned the patient to a seven-days quarantine, after which, according as clearer signs appeared or not, he would be declared clean or unclean (18-28). Another suspicious case, to be re-examined after a week’s seclusion, is that of the leprosy of the scalp, in which, not leprosy proper, but ringworm should most likely be recognized. In all cases of acknowledged leprous infection, the patient was to “have his clothes hanging loose, his head bare, his mouth covered with a cloth” and he was commanded to cry out that he was defiled and unclean. As long as the disease lasted, he had to “dwell alone without the camp” (or the city). Like the presence of leprosy, so the recovery was the object of a sentence of the priest, and the reinstatement in the community was solemnly made according to an elaborate ritual given in Lev., xiv.

In connexion with leprosy proper, Leviticus speaks also of the “leprosy of the garments” (xiii, 47-59) and “leprosy of the house” (xiv, 34-53). These kinds of leprosy, probably due to fungous formations, have nothing to do with leprosy proper, which is a specifically human disease.

IV. LEPROSY IN THE MIDDLE AGES

As a consequence of the dissemination of leprosy in Europe, legislation providing against the spread of the disease (which was considered to be contagious) and regulations concerning the marriage of leprous persons, as well as their segregation and detention in institutions — which were more charitable and philanthropic than medical, partaking of the character of asylums or almshouses — gradually came into operation. The historical researches of Virchow concerning leper-houses (leprosoria) have established the fact that such institutions existed in France as early as the seventh century at Verdun, Metz, Maestricht, etc., and that leprosy must even then have been widespread. In the eighth century St. Othmar in Germany and St. Nicholas of Corbis in France founded leper-houses, and many such existed in Italy. (See Virchow in “Archiv für pathologische Anatomie”, XVIII-XX, Leipzig, 1860.) Legislative enactments against the marriage of lepers, and providing for their segregation, were made and enforced as early as the seventh century by Rothar, King of the Lombards, and by Pepin (757) and Charlemagne (789) for the Empire of the Franks. The earliest accounts of the founding of leper-houses in Germany is in the eighth and ninth century; in Ireland (Innisfallen), 869; England, 950; Spain, 1007 (Malaga) and 1008 (Valencia); Scotland, 1170 (Aldnestun); the Netherlands, 1147 (Ghent). The founding of these houses did not take place until the disease had spread considerably and had become a menace to the public health. It is said to have been most prevalent about the time of the Crusades, assuming epidemic proportions in some localities: in France alone, at the time of the death of Louis IX, it was computed that there were some two thousand such houses, and in all Christendom not less than nineteen thousand (Hirsch, “Handbook of Geographical and Historical Pathology”, tr. Creighton, London, 1885, p. 7, note. Cf. Raymund) “Histoire de l’Eléphantiasis”, Lausanne, 1767, p. 106). Mézeray (Hist. de France, II, 168) says: “Il y avait ni ville ni bourgade, que ne fust obligée de bâtir un hôpital pour les (lepreux) retirer”. For Italy we have Muratori’s statement (Antiq. Ital. Med. Ævi, III, 53), “Vix ulla civitas quæ non aliquem locum leprosis destinatum haberet.”

There is, however, good reason to doubt the accuracy of the above figures (19,000) as estimated by our medieval informants. Besides, “it would be a mistake”, writes Hirsch (op. cit., p. 7), “to infer from the multiplication of leper-houses, that there was a corresponding increase in the number of cases, or to take the number of the former as the measure of the extent to which leprosy was prevalent, or to conclude, as many have done, that the coincidence of the Crusades implies any intrinsic connexion between the two things; or that the rise in the number of cases was due to the importation of leprosy into Europe from the East. In judging of these matters we must not leave out of sight the fact that the notion of ‘leprosy’ was a very comprehensive one in the middle age, not only among the laity but also among physicians; that syphilis was frequently included therein, as well as a variety of chronic skin diseases, and that the diagnosis with a view to segregating lepers was not made by the practitioners of medicine but mostly by the laity.”

Simpson, in his admirable essay on the leper-houses of Britain (Edin. Med. and Surg. Journal, 1841-42), writes: “I have already alluded to special Orders of Knighthood having been established at an early period for the care and superintendence of lepers. We know that the Knights of St. Lazarus separated from the general Order of the Knights Hospitallers about the end of the eleventh or beginning of the twelfth century (Index. Monast., p. 28). They were at first designated: Knights of St. Lazarus and St. Mary of Jerusalem. St. Louis brought twelve of the Knights of St. Lazarus to France and entrusted them with the superintendence of the ‘Lazaries’ (or leper hospitals) of the Kingdom. The first notice of their having obtained a footing in Great Britain is in the reign of Stephen (1135-54) at Burton Lazars (Leicestershire). I find that the hospitals of Tilton, of the Holy Innocents at Lincoln, of St. Giles (London), Closely in Norfolk, and various others are annexed to Burton Lazars as ‘cells’ containing ‘fratres leprosos de Sancto Lazaro de Jerusalem’. Its [Burton’s] privileges and possessions were confirmed by Henry II, King John and Henry VI. It was at last dissolved by Henry VIII.” (See LAZARUS, ST., ORDER OF.)

As has already been stated, these institutions were intended principally as houses to seclude the infected, and not so much as hospices for the curative treatment of the disease, which was considered then, as now, an incurable disorder. They were founded and endowed as religious establishments, and as such they were generally placed under the control and management of some abbey or monastery by a papal Bull, which appointed every leper-house to be provided with its own churchyard, chapel, and ecclesiastics — “cum cimuterio ecclesiam construere et propriis gaudere presbyteris” (Semler, “Hist. Eccles. Select.”). The English and Scotch houses were under the full control of a custos, dean, prior, and, in some cases — as in the hospital of St. Lawrence, Canterbury, which contained lepers of both sexes — a prioress. The ecclesiastical officers of the hospitals and the leper inmates were bound by the regulations laid down in the charters of the institution, which they had to observe strictly, especially as to offering up prayers for the repose of the souls of the founder and his family. The following extracts from the regulations of the leper-hospital at Illeford (Essex), in 1346, by Baldock, Bishop of London, illustrate this point: “We also command that the lepers omit not attendance at their church, to hear divine service unless prevented by previous bodily infirmity, and they are to preserve silence and hear matins and mass throughout if they are able; and whilst there to be intent on devotion and prayer as far as their infirmity permit them. We advise also and command that as it was ordained of old in the said hospital every leprous brother shall every day say for the morning duty, an Our Father and Hail Mary thirteen times and for the other hours of the day . . . respectively an Our Father and a Hail Mary seven times, etc. . . . If a leprous brother secretly [occulte] fails in the performance of these articles let him consult the priest of the said hospital in the tribunal of penance” (Dugdale, “Monasticon Anglicanum”, II, 390). There was generally a chaplain under the prior and in some instances a free chapel was attached with resident canons. The hospital at St. Giles (Norwich), for instance, had a prior and eight canons (acting chaplains), two clerks, seven choristers, and two sisters (Monast., Index, 55).

Matthew Paris has left us a copy of the vow taken by the brothers of the leper-hospitals of St. Julian and St. Alban before admission: “I, brother B., promise and, taking my bodily oath by touching the most sacred Gospel, affirm before God and all the Saints in this church which is constructed in honour of St. Julian (the Confessor), in the presence of Dominus R. the archdeacon, that all the days of my life I will be subservient and obedient to the commands of the Lord Abbot of St. Albans for the time being and to his archdeacon, resisting in nothing, unless such things should be commanded as could militate against the Divine pleasure: I will never commit theft, or bring a false accusation against any one of the brethren, nor infringe the vow of chastity nor fail in my duty by appropriating anything, or leaving anything by will to others, unless by a dispensation granted by the brothers. I will make it my study wholly to avoid all kinds of usury as a monstrous thing and hateful to God. I will not be aiding or abetting in word or thought, directly or indirectly in any plan by which any one shall be appointed Custos or Dean of the lepers of St. Julians, except the persons appointed by the Lord Abbot of St. Albans. I will be content, without strife or complaint, with the food and drink and other things given and allowed to me by the Master; according to the usage and custom of the house. I will not transgress the bounds prescribed to me, without the special license of my superiors, and with their consent and will; and if I prove an offender against any article named above, it is my wish that the Lord Abbot or his substitute may punish me according to the nature and amount of the offence, as shall seem best to him, and even to cast me forth an apostate from the congregation of the brethren without hope of remission, except through special grace of the Lord Abbot.” It is interesting to compare with the passage on usury in this formula the statement of Mézeray (Hist. de France), that during the twelfth century two very cruel evils (deux maux très cruels) reigned in France, viz., leprosy and usury, one of which, he adds, infected the body while the other ruined families.

The Church, therefore, from a remote period has taken a most active part in promoting the wellbeing and care of the leper, both spiritual and temporal. The Order of St. Lazarus was the outcome of her practical sympathy for the poor sufferers during the long centuries when the pestilence was endemic in Europe. Even in our own day we find the same Apostolic spirit alive. The saintly Father Damien, the martyr of Molokai, whose life-sacrifice for the betterment of the lepers of the Sandwich Islands is still fresh in public recollection, and his co-labourers and followers in that field of missionary work have strikingly manifested in recent times the same apostolic spirit which actuated the followers of St. Lazarus in the twelfth and two succeeding centuries.

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BENNETT, Diseases of the Bible (London, 1887); DYER, Leprosy (New York, 1897); HANSEN AND LOOFT, Leprosy in its Clinical and Pathological Aspects (London, 1895); Report of the Leprosy Commission to India (London, 1893); THIN, Leprosy (London, 1891); BARTHOLINUS, De morbis biblicis (Copenhagen 1671); PRUNER, Die Krankheiten des Orients (Erlangen, 1847); TRUSEN, Die Sitten, Gebräuche und Krankheiten der alten Hebräer (Breslau, 1833); LELOIR, Traité pratique et théorique de la lèpre (Paris, 1886); SAUTON, La Léprose (Paris, 1901). See the works of MÉZERAY, MURATORI, VIRCHOW, and SEMLER, and the essay of SIMPSON in Edinb. Med. and Surg. Journal (1841-42), all quoted in the body of this article.

CHARLES L. SOUVAYJ.F. DONOVANTranscribed by Douglas J. Potter Dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IXCopyright © 1910 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, CensorImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York

Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia

Leprosy

(, tsara’th, a smiting, because supposed to be a direct visitation of heaven; Gr. , so called from its scaliness, hence English leper, etc.), a name that was given by the Greek physicians to a scaly disease of the skin. During the Dark Ages it was indiscriminately applied to all chronic diseases of the skin, and more particularly to elephantiasis, to which latter, however, it does not bear a complete resemblance. Hence prevailed the greatest discrepancy and confusion in the descriptions that authors gave of the disease, until Dr. Willan restored to the term lepra its original significations. In the Scriptures it is applied to a foul cutaneous disease, the description of which, as well as the regulations consecrated therewith, are given in Leviticus 13, 14 (comp. also Exo 4:6-7; Num 12:10-15; 2Sa 3:29; 2Ki 5:27; 2Ki 7:3; 2Ki 15:5; Mat 8:2; Mat 10:8, etc.). In the discussion of this subject we base our article upon the most recent scientific and archeological distinctions, compared with the present Oriental usages. I. Scriptural and Talmudical Statements.

(I.) Leprosy in Human Beings.

1. Cases and Symptomns of Biblical Leprosy. Lev 13:2-44, which descrilbes this distemper as laying hold of man, gives six different circumstances under which it may develop itself. They are as follows:

(1.) The first circumstance mentioned in Lev 13:2-6 is that it may develop itself without any apparent cause. Hence it is enjoined that if any one should notice a rising or swelling (), an eruption or scab (), or a glossy pimple () in the skin of his flesh, which may terminate in leprosy ( ), he is at once to be taken to the priest, who is to examine it and pronounce it leprosy, and the man unclean, if it exhibits these two symptoms, viz. a, the hair of the affected spot changed from its natural black color to white; and, b, the spot deeper than the general level of the skin of the body (Lev 13:2-3). But if these two symptoms do not appear in the bright pimple, the priest is to shut him up for seven days, examine him again on the seventh day, and if the disease appears to have made no progress during this time, he is to remand the patient for another seven days (Lev 13:4-5), and then, if on inspecting it again he finds that the bright spot has grown darker (), and that it has not spread on the skin, he is to pronounce it a simple scab ( ), and the person clean after washing his garments (Lev 13:6). If, however, the pustule spreads over the skin after it has been pronounced a simple scab and the individual clean, the priest is to declare it leprosy, and the patient unclean (Lev 13:7-8). It is thus evident that the symptoms which indicated scriptural leprosy, as the Mishna rightly remarks (Negaim, 3:3), are bright pimples, a little depressed, turning the hair white, and spreading over the skin.

As the description of these symptoms is very concise, and requires to be specified more minutely for practical purposes, the spiritual guides of Israel defined them as follows: Both the bright pimple () and the swelling spot (), when indicative of leprosy, assume respectively one of two colors, a principal or a subordinate one. The principal color of the bright pimple is as white as snow ( ), and the subordinate resembles plaster on the wall ( ); whilst the principal color of the rising spot is like that of an eggshell ( ), and the secondary one resembles white wool ( , Negaim, 1:1); so that if the affected spot in the skin is inferior in whiteness to the film of an egg it is not leprosy, but simply a gathering (Maimonides, On Leprosy, 1:1). Any one may examine the disease, except the patient himself or his relatives, but the priest alone can decide whether it is leprosy or not, and accordingly pronounce the patient unclean or clean, because Deu 21:5 declares that the priest must decide cases of litigation and disease. But though the priest only can pronounce the decision, even if he be a child or a fool, yet he must act upon the advice of a learned layman in those matters (Negaim, 3:1; Maimonides, l. c., 9:1, 2). If the priest is blind of one eye, or is weak-sighted, he is disqualified for examining the distemper (Mishna, l. c., 2:3). The inspection must not take place on the Sabbath, nor early in the morning, nor in the middle of the day, nor in the evening, nor on cloudy days, because the color of the skin cannot properly be ascertained in these hours of the day; but in the third, fourth, fifth, seventh, eighth, or ninth hour (Negayim, 2:2); and the same priest who inspected it at first must examine it again at the end of the second seven days, as another one could not tell whether it has spread. If he should die in the interim, or be taken ill, another one may examine him, but not pronounce him unclean (Maimonides, On Leprosy, 9:4). There must be at least two hairs white at the root and in the body of the bright spot before the patient can be declared unclean (Maimonides, 1. c., 2:1). If a bridegroom is seized with this distemper he must be left alone during the nuptial week (Negayim, 3:2).

(2.) The second case is of leprosy reappearing after it has been cured (Lev 13:9-17), where a somewhat different treatment is enjoined. If a person who has once been healed of this disease is brought again to the priest, and if the latter finds a white rising in the skin ( ), which has changed the hair into white and contains live flesh ( ), he is forthwith to recognize therein the reappearance of the old malady, and declare the patient unclean without any quarantine whatever, since the case is so evident that it requires no trial (Lev 13:9-11). There were, however, two phases of this returned distemper which exempted the patient from uncleanness. If the leprosy suddenly covered the whole body so that the patient became perfectly white, in which case there could be no appearance of live flesh (Lev 13:12-13), or if the whiteness, after having once diminished and allowed live flesh to appear, covers again the whole body, then the patient was clean (Lev 13:14-17). This, most probably, was regarded as indicative of the crisis, as the whole evil matter thus brought to the surface formed itself into a scale which dried and peeled off. The only other feature which this case represents besides the symptoms already described is that leprosy at times also spread over the whole skin and rendered it perfectly white. As to the live flesh ( ), the Sept., the Chaldee, the Mishna, and the Jewish rabbins, in accordance with ancient tradition, take it to denote soundflesh, or a spot in the flesh assuming the appearance of life after it had been paled by the whiteness overspreading the whole surface. The size of this spot of live flesh which renders the patient unclean must, according to tradition, be at least that of a lentil (Maimonides, 1. c., 3:1-3).

(3.) The third case is of leprosy developing itself from an inflammation () or a burn ( ), which is to be recognized by the same symptoms (Lev 13:18-28). Hence, when these suspicious signs were discernible in that part of the skin which was healed of an inflammation, the patient was to go to the priest, who was at once to pronounce it leprosy developed from an inflammation, if the symptoms were unmistakable (Lev 13:19-20). If the priest found these marks, he remanded the patient for seven days (Lev 13:21), and if the disorder spread over the skin during the time the patient was declared leprous and unclean (Lev 13:22); but if it remained in the same condition, he pronounced it the cicatrix of the inflammation ( ) and the patient clean (Lev 13:23). The same rules applied to the suspicious appearance of a burn (Lev 13:24-28). According to the Hebrew canons, is defined inflammation arising from an injury received from the stroke of wood or a stone, or from hot olive husks, or the hot Tiberian water, or from anything, the heat of which does not come from fire, whilst denotes a burn from live coals, hot ashes, or from any heat which proceeds from fire (Negaim,, 9:1; Maimonides, On Leprosy, v. 1). It will be seen that there is a difference in the treatment of the suspicious symptoms in (1.) and (3.). In the former instance, where there is no apparent cause for the symptoms, the suspected invalid has to undergo two remands of seven days before his case can be decided; whilst in the latter, where the inflammation or the burn visibly supplies the reason for this suspicion, he is only remanded for one week, at the end of which his case is finally determined.

(4.) The fourth case is leprosy on the head or chin (Lev 13:29-37), which is to be recognized by the affected spot being deeper than the general level of the skin, and by the hair thereon having become thin and yellowish. When these symptoms exist, the priest is to pronounce it a scall (), which is head or chin leprosy, and declare the patient unclean (Lev 13:30). But if this disorder on the head or chin does not exhibit these symptoms, the patient is to be remanded for seven days, when the priest is again to examine it, and if he finds that it has neither spread nor exhibits the required criteria, he is to order the patient to cut off all the hair of his head or chin, except that which grows on the afflicted spot itself, and remand him for another week, and then pronounce him clean if it continues in the same state at the expiration of this period (Lev 13:31-34); and if it spreads after he has been pronounced clean, the priest is forthwith to declare him unclean without looking for any yellow hair (Lev 13:35-36). The Jewish canons define by an affection on the head or chin which causes the hair on these affected parts to fall off by the roots, so that the place of the hair is quite bare (Maimonides, On Leprosy, 8:1). The condition of the hair, constituting one of the leprous symptoms, is described as follows: is small or short, but if it be long, though it is yellow as gold, it is no sign of uncleanness. Two yellow and short hairs, whether close to one another or far from each other, whether in the center of the nethek or on the edge thereof, no matter whether the nethek precedes the yellow hair or the yellow hair the nethek, are symptoms of uncleanness (Maimonides. 1. c., 8:5). The manner of shaving is thus described: The hair round the scall is all shaved off except two hairs which are close to it, so that it might be known thereby whether it spread (Negaim, 10:5).

(5.) The fifth case is leprosy which shows itself in white polished spots, and is not regarded as unclean (Lev 13:38-39). It is called bohak ( ‘, from , to be white), or, as the Sept. has it, , vitiligo alba, white scurf.

(6.) The sixth case is of leprosy either at the back or in the front of the head (Lev 13:40-44). When a man loses his hair either at the back or in the front of his head, it is a simple case of baldness, and he is clean (Lev 13:40-41). But if a whitish red spot forms itself on the bald place at the back or in the front of the head, then it is leprosy, which is to be recognized by the fact that the swelling or scab on the spot has the appearance of leprosy in the skin of the body; and the priest is to declare the man’s head leprous and unclean (Lev 13:42-44). Though there is only one symptom mentioned whereby head leprosy is to be recognized, and nothing is said about remanding the patient if the distemper should appear doubtful, as in the other cases of leprosy, yet the ancient rabbins inferred from the remark, It is like leprosy in the skin of the flesh, that all the criteria specified in the latter are implied in the former. Hence the Hebrew canons submit that there are two symptoms which render baldness in the front or at the back of the head unclean, viz. live or sound flesh, and spreading; the patient is also shut up for them two weeks, because it is said of them that they are land therefore must be treated like leprosy in the skin of the flesh’ (Lev 13:43). Of course, the fact that the distemper in this instance develops itself on baldness, precludes white hair being among the criteria indicating uncleanness. The manner in which the patient in question is declared unclean by two symptoms and in two weeks is as follows: If live or sound flesh is found in the bright spot on the baldness at the back or in the front of the head, he is pronounced unclean; if there is no live flesh he is shut up and examined at the end of the week, and if live flesh has developed itself, and it has spread, he is declared unclean, and if not he is shut up for another week. If it has spread during this time, or engendered live flesh, he is declared unclean, and if not he is pronounced clean. He is also pronounced unclean if it spreads or engenders sound flesh after he has been declared clean (Negaim, 10:10; Maimonides, On Leprosy, 5:9,10).

2. Regulations about the Conduct and Purification of leprous Men. Lepers were to rend their garments, let the hair of their head hang down disheveled, cover themselves up to the upper lip, like mourners, and warn off every one whom they happened to meet by calling out Unclean! unclean! since they defiled every one and everything they touched. For this reason they were also obliged to live in exclusion outside the camp or city (Lev 13:45-46; Num 5:1-4; Num 12:10-15; 2Ki 7:3, etc.). The very entrance of a leper into a house, according to the Jewish canons, renders everything in it unclean (Negaim., 12:11; Kelim, 1:4). If he stands under a tree and a clean man passes by, he renders him unclean. In the synagogue which he wishes to attend they are obliged to make him a separate compartment, ten handbreadths high and four cubits long and broad; he has to be the first to go in, and the last to leave the synagogue (Negaim, 12:12; Maimonides, On Leprosy, 10:12); and if he transgressed the prescribed boundaries he was to receive forty stripes (Pesachim, 67, at). All this only applies to those who had been pronounced lepers by the priest, but not to those who were on quarantine (Negaim, 1:7). The rabbinic law also exempts women from the obligation to rend their garments and let the hair of their head fall down (Sota, 3:8). It is therefore no wonder that the Jews regarded leprosy as a living death (comp. Josephus, Ant. 3:11, 8, and the well-known rabbinic saying ), and as an awful punishment from the Lord (2Ki 5:7; 2Ch 26:20), which they wished all their mortal enemies (2Sa 3:29 : 2Ki 5:27).

The healed leper had to pass through two stages of purification before he could be received back into the community. As soon as the distemper disappeared he sent for the priest, who had to go outside the camp or town to convince himself of the fact. Thereupon the priest ordered two clean and live birds, a piece of cedar wood, crimson wool, and hyssop; killed one bird over a vessel containining spring water, so that the blood might run into it, tied together the hyssop and the cedar wood with the crimson wool, put about them the tops of the wings and the tip of the tail of the living bird, dipped all the four in the blood and water which were in the vessel, then sprinkled the hand of the healed leper seven times, let the bird loose, and pronounced the restored man clean (Lev 14:17; Negtaime, 12:1). The healed leper was then to wash his garments, cut off all his hair, be immersed, and return to the camp or city, but remain outside his house seven days, which the Mishina (Negailm, 14:2), the Chaldee Paraphrase, Maimonides (On Leprosy, 11:1), etc., rightly regard as a euphemism for exclusion from connubial intercourse during that time (Lev 14:8), in order that he might not contract impurity (comp. Lev 15:18). With this ended the first stage of purification. According to the Jewish canons, the birds are to be free, and not caged, or sparrows; the piece of cedar wood is to be a cubit long, and a quarter of the foot of the bed thick; the crimson wool is to be a shekel’s weight, i.e. 320 grains of barley; the hyssop must at least be a handbreadth in size, and is neither to be the so- called Greek, nor ornamental, nor Roman, nor wild hyssop, nor have any name whatever; the vessel must be an earthen one, and new; and the dead bird must be buried in a hole dug before their eyes (Negaim, 14:1-6; Maimonides, On Leprosy, 11:1).

The second stage of purification began on the seventh day, when the leper had again to cut off the hair of his head, his beard, eyebrows, etc., wash his garments, and be immersed (Lev 14:9). On the eighth day he had to bring two he-lambs without blemish, one ewe-lamb a year old, three tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, and one log of oil; the one he-lamb is to be a trespass-offering, and the other, with the ewe-lamb, a burnt and a sin-offering; but if the man was poor he was to bring two turtle-doves, or two young pigeons, for a sin-offering and a burnt-offering, instead of a he-lamb and a ewe-lamb (Lev 14:10-11; Lev 14:21). With these offerings the priest conducted the healed leper before the presence of the Lord. What the offerer had to do, and how the priest acted when going through these ceremonies, cannot be better described than in the following graphic language of the Jewish tradition. The priest approaches the trespass- offering, lays both his hands on it, and kills it, when two priests catch its blood, one into a vessel, and the other in his hand; the one who caught it into the vessel sprinkles it against the wall of the altar, the other goes to the leper, who, having been immersed in the leper’s chamber [which is in the women’s court], is waiting [outside the court of Israel, or the men’s court, opposite the eastern door] in the porch of Nicanor [with his face to the west]. He then puts his head into [the court of Israel], and the priest puts some of the blood upon the tip of his right ear; he next puts in his right hand, and the priest puts some blood upon the thumb thereof; and, lastly, puts in his right ear, and the priest puts some blood on the toe thereof. The: priest then takes some of the log of oil and puts it into, the left hand of his fellow-priest, or into his own left hand, dips the finger of his right hand in it, and sprinkles it seven times towards the holy of holies, dipping his finger every time he sprinkles it; whereupon he goes to the leper, puts oil on those parts of his body on which he had previously put blood [i.e. the tip of the ear, the thumb, and the toe], as it is written, on the place of the blood of the trespass-offering’ [Lev 14:28], and what remains of the oil in the hand of the priest he puts on the head of him who is to be cleansed, for an atonement (Negaim, 14:8-10; Maimonides, Michoth Mechosrei Kepora, 4). It is in accordance with this prerogative of the priest, who alone could pronounce the leper clean and readmit him into the congregation, that Christ commanded the leper whom he had healed to show himself to this functionary (Mat 8:2, etc.).

(II.) Leprous Garments and Vessels. Leprosy in garments and vessels is indicated by two symptoms, green or reddish spots, and spreading. If a green or reddish spot shows itself in a woolen or linen garment, or in a leather vessel, it is indicative of leprosy, and must be shown to the priest, who is to shut it up for a week. If, on inspecting it at the end of this time, he finds that the spot has spread, he is to pronounce it inveterate leprosy ( ), and unclean, and burn it (Lev 13:47-52); if it has not spread he is to have it washed, and shut it up for another week, and if its appearance has then not changed, he is to pronounce it unclean and burn it, though it has not spread, since the distemper rankles in the front or at the back of the material (Lev 13:53-55). But if, after washing it, the priest sees that the spot has become weaker, he is to cut it out of the material; if it reappears in any part thereof, then it is a developed distemper, and the whole of it must be burned; and if it vanishes after washing, it must be washed a second time, and is clean (Lev 13:56-59). The Jewish canons define the color green to be like that of herbs, and red like that of fair crimson, and take this enactment literally as referring strictly to wool of sheep and flax, but not to hemp and other materials. A material made of camel’s hair and sheep’s wool is not rendered unclean by leprosy if the camel’s hair preponderate, but is unclean when the sheep’s wool preponderates, or when both are equal, and this also applies to mixtures of flax and hemp. Dyed skins and garments are not rendered unclean by leprosy; nor are vessels so if made of skins of aquatic animals exposed to leprous uncleanness (Negaim, 11:2,3; Maimonides, ut sup. 11:1; 12:10; 13:1-3).

(III.) Leprous Houses. Leprosy in houses is indicated by the same three symptoms, viz. spots of a deep green or reddish hue, depressed beyond the general level, and spreading (Lev 14:33-48). On its appearance the priest was at once to be sent for, and the house cleared of everything before his arrival. If, on inspecting it, he found the first two symptoms in the walls, viz. a green or red spot in the wall, and depressed, he shut the house up for seven days (Lev 14:34-38), inspected it again on the seventh day, and if the distemper spread in the wall he had the affected stones taken out, the inside of the house scraped all round, the stones, dust, etc., cast into an unclean place without the city, and other stones and plaster put on the wall (Lev 14:39-42). If, after all this, the spot reappeared and spread, he pronounced it inveterate leprosy, and unclean, had the house pulled down, and the stones, timber, plaster, etc., cast into an unclean place without the city, declared every one unclean, till evening, who had entered it, and ordered every one who had either slept or eaten in it to wash his garments (Lev 14:43-47).

As to the purification of the houses which have been cured of leprosy, the process is the same as that of healed men, except that in the case of man the priest sprinkles seven times upon his hand, while in that of the house he sprinkles seven times on the upper door-post without. Of course the sacrifices which the leprous man had to bring in his second stage of purification are precluded in the case of the house (Maimonides, On Leprosy, 15:8).

3. Prevalence, Contagion, and Curableness of Leprosy. Though the malicious story of Manetho that the Egyptians expelled the Jews because they were afflicted with leprosy (Josephus, Ap. 1:26), which is repeated by Tacitus (lib. v, c. 3), is rejected by modern historians and critics as a fabrication, yet Michaelis (Laws of Moses, art. 209), Thomson (The Land and the Book, p. 652), and others still maintain that this disease was extremely prevalent among the Israelites. Against this, however, is to be urged that, 1. The very fact that such strict examination was enjoined, and that every one who had a pimple, spot, or boil was shut up, shows that leprosy could not have been so widespread, inasmuch as it would require the imprisonment of the great mass of the people. 2. In cautioning the people against the evil of leprosy, and urging on them to keep strictly to the directions of the priest, Moses adds, “Remember what the Lord thy God did to Miriam on the way when you came out of Egypt (Deu 24:9). Now allusion to a single instance which occurred on the way from Egypt, and which, therefore, was an old case, naturally implies that leprosy was of rare occurrence among the Jews, else there would have been no necessity to adduce a by-gone case; and, 3. Wherever leprosy is spoken of in later books of the Bible, which does not often take place, it is only of isolated cases (2Ki 7:3; 2Ki 15:5), and the regulations are strictly carried out, and the men are shut up so that even the king himself formed no exception (2Ki 15:5).

That the disease was not contagious is evident from the regulations themselves. The priests had to be in constant and close contact with lepers, had to examine and handle them; the leper who was entirely covered was pronounced clean (Lev 13:12-13); and the priest himself commanded that all things in a leprous house should be taken out before he entered it, in order that they might not be pronounced unclean, and that they might be used again (Lev 14:36), which most unquestionably implies that there was no fear of contagion. This is, moreover, corroborated by the ancient Jewish canons, which were made by those very men who had personally to deal with this distemper, and according to which a leprous minor, a heathen, and a proselyte, as well as leprous garments, and houses of non-Israelites, do not render any one unclean; nor does a bridegroom, who is seized with this malady during the nuptial week, defile any one during the first seven days of his marriage (comp. Negaim, 3:1, 2; 7:1; 11:1; 12:1; Maimonides, On Leprosy, 6:1; 7:1, etc.). These canons would be utterly inexplicable on the hypothesis that the distemper in question was contagious. The enactments, therefore, about the exclusion of the leper from society, and about defilement, were not dictated by sanitary caution, but had their root in the moral and ceremonial law, like the enactments about the separation and uncleanness of menstruous women, of those who had an issue or touched the dead, which are joined with leprosy. Being regarded as a punishment for sin, which God himself inflicted upon the disobedient (Exo 15:26; Lev 14:35), this loathsome disease, with the peculiar rites connected therewith, was especially selected as a typical representation of the pollution of sin, in which light the Jews always viewed it. Thus we are told that leprosy comes upon man for seven, ten, or eleven things: for idolatry, profaning the name of God, unchastity, theft, slander, false witness, false judgment, perjury, infringing the borders of a neighbor, devising malicious plans, or creating discord between brothers (Erachin, 16, 17; Baba Bathra, 164; Aboth de R. Nathan, 9; Midrash Rabba on Leviticus 14). Cedar wood and hyssop, the highest and the lowest, give the leper purity. Why these? Because pride was the cause of the distemper, which cannot be cured till man becomes humble, and keeps himself as low as hyssop (Midrash Rabba, Koheleth, p. 104).

As to the curableness of the disease, this is unquestionably implied in the minute regulations about the sacrifices and conduct of those who were restored to health. Besides, in the case of Miriam, we find that shutting her up for seven days cured her of leprosy (Num 12:11-13).

II. Identity of the Biblical Leprosy with the modern Distemper bearing this Name. It would be useless to discuss the different disorders which have been palmed upon the Mosaic description of leprosy. A careful classification and discrimination is necessary.

1. The Greeks distinguished three species of lepra, the specific names of which were , , and which may be rendered the vitiligo, the white and the black. Now, on turning to the Mosaic account, we also find three species mentioned, which were all included under the generic term of , bahereth, or bright spot (Lev 13:2-4; Lev 13:18-28). The first is called , bhak, which signifies brightness, but in a subordinate degree (Lev 13:39). This species did not render a person unclean. The second was called , bahereth lebandh. or a bright white baherleth. The characteristic marks of the bahe’eth lebandh mentioned by Moses are a glossy white and spreading scale upon an elevated base, the elevation depressed in the middle, the hair on the patches participating in the whiteness, and the patches themselves perpetually increasing. This was evidently the true leprosy, probably corresponding to the white of the Greeks and the vulgaris of modern science. The third was , bahereth khadh, or dusky bahereth, spreading in the skin. It has been thought to correspond with the black leprosy of the Greeks and the nigricans of Dr. Willan. These last two were also called , tsardath (i.e. proper leprosy), and rendered a person unclean. There are some other slight affections mentioned by name in Leviticus (chap. 13), which the priest was required to distinguish from leprosy, such as , seeth; , shaphdl; , nethek; -, shechen, i.e. elevation, depressed, etc.; and to each of these Dr. Good (Study of Med. 5:590) has assigned a modern systematic name. But, as it is useless to attempt to recognize a disease otherwise than by a description of its symptoms, we can have no object in discussing his interpretation of these terms. We therefore recognize but two species of real leprosy.

(I.) Proper Leprosy. This is the kind specifically denominated , bahereth, whether white or black, but usually called white leprosy, by the Arabs barras; a disease not unfrequent among the Hebrews (2Ki 5:27; Exo 4:6; Num 12:10), and often called lepra Mosaica. It was regarded by them as a divine infliction (hence its Heb. name , tsardath, a stroke i.e. of God), and in several instances we find it such, as in the case of Miriam (Num 12:10), Gehazi (2Ki 5:27), and Uzziah (2Ch 26:16-23), from which and other indications it appears to have been considered hereditary, and incurable by human means (comp. 2Sa 3:29; 2Ki 5:7). From Deu 24:8, it appears to have been well-known in Egypt as a dreadful disease (comp. Description de l’Egypte, 13:159 sq.). The distinctive marks given by Moses to indicate this disease (Leviticus 13) are, a depression of the surface and whiteness or yellowness of the hair in the spot (Lev 13:3; Lev 13:20; Lev 13:25; Lev 13:30), or a spreading of the scaliness (Lev 13:8; Lev 13:22; Lev 13:27; Lev 13:36), or raw flesh in it (Lev 13:10; Lev 13:14), or a white-reddish sore (Lev 13:43).

The disease, as it is known at the present day, commences by an eruption of small reddish spots slightly raised above the level of the skin. and grouped in a circle. These spots are soon covered by a very thin, semitransparent scale or epidermis, of a whitish color, and very smooth, which in a little time falls off, and leaves the skin beneath red and uneven. As the circles increase in diameter, the skin recovers its healthy appearance towards the center; fresh scales are formed, which are now thicker, and superimposed one above the other, especially at the edges, so that the center of the scale appears to be depressed. The scales are of a grayish- white color, and have something of a micaceous or pearly lustre. The circles are generally of the size of a shilling or half crown, but they have been known to attain half a foot in diameter. The disease generally affects the knees and elbows, but sometimes it extends over the whole body, in which case the circles become confluent. It does not at all affect the general health, and the only inconvenience it causes the patient is a slight itching when the skin is heated; or, in inveterate cases, when the skin about the joints is much thickened, it may in some degree impede the free motion of the limbs. It is common to both sexes, to almost all ages, and all ranks of society. It is not in the least infectious, but. it is always difficult to be cured, and in old persons, when it is of long standing, may be pronounced incurable. It is commonly met with in all parts of Europe, and occasionally in America. Its systematic name is Lepra vulgaris.

Moses prescribes no natural remedy for the cure of leprosy (Leviticus 13). He requires only that the diseased person should show himself to the priest, and that the priest should judge of his leprosy; if it appeared to be a real leprosy, he separated the leper from the company of mankind (Lev 13:45-46; comp. Num 5:2; Num 12:10; Num 12:14; 2Ki 7:3; 2Ki 15:5; Josephus, Apion, 1:31; Ant. 3:11,3; Wars, 5:5,6; see Wetstein, N. t. 1:175; Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. p. 861; Withob, Opusc. p. 169 sq.). Although the laws in the Mosaic code respecting this disease are exceedingly rigid (see Michaelis, Orient. Bibl. 17:19 sq.; Medic. hermeneuet. Untersuch. p. 240 sq.), it is by no means clear that the leprosy was contagious. The fear or disgust which was felt towards such a peculiar disease might be a sufficient cause for such severe enactments. All intercourse with society, however, was not cut off (Mat 8:2; Luk 5:12; Luk 17:12), and even contact with a leper did not necessarily impart uncleanness (Luk 17:12). They were even admitted to the synagogue (Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. p. 862). Similar liberties are still allowed them among the Arabians (Niebuhr, Beschr. p. 136); so that we are probably to regard the statements of travelers respecting the utter exclusion of modern lepers in the East as relating to those affected with entirely a different disease, the elephantiasis. In Leviticus 14 are detailed particular ceremonies and offerings (compare Mat 8:4) to be officially observed by the priest on behalf of a leper restored to health and purity. See D. C. Lutz, De duab. avtib. purgationi leprosi destinatis earundenzque mysterio, Hal. 1737; Bihr, Symbol. 2:512 sq.; Baumgarten, Commnent. I, 2:170 sq.; Talmud, tract Negaim, 6:3; Otho, Lex. Rabb. p. 365 sq.; Rhenferd, in Meuschen, N.T. Talmud. p. 1057.

(II.) Elephantiasis. This more severe form of cutaneous, or, rather, scrofulous disease has been confounded with leprosy, from which it is essentially different. It is usually called tubercular leprosy (Lepra nodosa, Celsus, Med. 3:25), and has generally been thought to be the disease with which Job was afflicted ( , Job 2:7; comp. Deu 28:35). SEE JOBS DISEASE.

It has been thought to be alluded to by the term botch of Egypt ( , Deu 28:27), where it is said to have been endemic (Pliny, 26:5; Lucret. 6:1112 sq.; comp. Aretaeus, Cappad. morb. diut. 2:13, see Ainslie, in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society, 1:282 sq.). The Greeks gave the name of elephantiasis to this disease because the skin of the person affected with it was thought to resemble that of an elephant, in dark color, ruggedness, and insensibility, or, as some have thought, because the foot, after the loss of the toes, when the hollow of the sole is filled up and the ankle enlarged, resembles the foot of an elephant. The Arabs called it Judhm, which means mutilation, amputation, in reference to the loss of the smaller members. They have, however, also described another disease, and a very different one from elephantiasis, to which they gave the name of Da’l fil, which means literally morbus elephas. The disease to which they applied this name is called by modern writers the tumid Barbadoes leg, and consists in a thickening of the skin and subcutaneous tissues of the leg, but presents nothing resembling the tubercles of elephantiasis. Now the Latin translators from the Arabic, finding that the same name existed both in the Greek and Arabic, translated Da’l fil by elephantiasis, and thus confounded the Barbadoes leg with the Arabic Judham, while this latter, which was in reality elephantiasis, they rendered by the Greek term lepra. See Kleyer, in Miscell. nat. curios. 1683, p. 8; Bartholin. Morb. Bibl. 100:7; Michaelis, Finleit. ins A. T. 1:58 sq.; Reinhard, Bibelkrank. 3:52.

About the period of the Crusades elephantiasis spread itself like an epidemic over all Europe, even as far north as the Faroe Islands; and henceforth, owing to the above-named mistakes, every one became familiar with leprosy under the form of the terrible disease that has just been described. Leper or lazar-houses abounded everywhere: as many as 2000 are said to have existed in France alone. In the leper hospital in Edinburgh the inmates begged for the general community-sitting for the purpose at the door of the hospital. They were obliged to warn those approaching them of the presence of an infected fellow-mortal by using a wood rattle or clapper. The infected in European countries were obliged to enter leper hospitals, and were considered legally and politically dead. The Church, taking the same view of it, performed over them the solemn ceremonies for the burial of the dead the priest closing the ceremony by throwing upon them a shovelful of earth. The disease was considered to be contagious possibly only on account of the belief that was entertained respecting its identity with Jewish leprosy, and the strictest regulations were enacted for secluding the diseased from society. Towards the commencement of the 17th century the disease gradually disappeared from Europe, and is now mostly confined to intertropical countries. It existed in Faroe as late as 1676, and in the Shetland Islands in 1736, long after it had ceased in the southern parts of Great Britain. This fearful disease made its appearance in the island of Guadaloupe in the year 1730, introduced by negroes from Africa, producing great consternation among the inhabitants. In Europe it is now principally confined to Norway, where the last census gave 2000 cases. It visits occasionally some of the sea-port localities of Spain. It has made its appearance in the most different climates, from Iceland through the temperate regions to the and plains of Arabia in moist and dry localities. It still exists in Palestine and Egypt the latter its most familiar home, although Dr. Kitto thinks not in such numerous instances as in former ages. The physical causes of the malady are uncertain. The best authors of the present day who have had an opportunity of observing the disease do not consider it to be contagious. There seems, however, to be little doubt as to its being hereditary. See Good’s Study of Medicine, 3:421; Rayer, Malachi de la Peau, 2:296; Simpson, On the Lepers and Leperhouses of Scotland and England, in Edinb. Medical and Surgical Journal, Jan. 1, 1842; J. Gieslesen, De elephantiasi Norvegica (Havn. 1785); Michael. U. orient Bibl. 4:168 sq.; B. Haubold, Vitiliginis leprosce rarioris historia c. epicrisi (Lips. 1821); C. J. Hille, Rarmioris norbi clephantiasi partiali sienilis histor. (Lips. 1828); Rosenbaum, in the Hall. Encyklop. 33:254 sq.

Elephantiasis, or the leprosy of the Middle Ages, is the disease from which most of the prevalent notions concerning leprosy have been derived, and to which the notices of lepers contained in modern books of travels exclusively refer. It is doubtful whether any of the lepers cured by Christ (Mat 8:3; Mar 1:42; Luke v. 12, 13) were of this class. In nearly all Oriental towns persons of this description are met with, excluded from intercourse with the rest of the community, and usually confined to a separate quarter of the town. Dr. Robinson says, with reference to Jerusalem, Within the Zion Gate, a little towards the right, are some miserable hovels, inhabited by persons called lepers. Whether their disease is or is not the leprosy of Scripture I am unable to affirm; the symptoms described to us were similar to those of elephantiasis. At any rate, they are pitiable objects, and miserable outcasts from society. They all live here together, and inter-marry only with each other. The children are said to be healthy until the age of puberty or later, when the disease makes its appearance in a finger, on the nose, or in some like part of the body, and gradually increases as long as the victim survives. They were said often to live to the age of forty or fifty years (Bib. Res. 1:359). With reference to their presence elsewhere, he remarks, There are said to be leprous persons at Nabls (Shechem) as well as at Jerusalem, but we did not here meet with them (ib. 3:113 note). On the reputed site of the house of Naaman, at Damascus, stands at the present day a hospital filled with unfortunate patients, the victims affected like him with leprosy. SEE PLAGUE.

2. That the Mosaic cases of true leprosy were confined to the former of these two dreadful forms of disease is evident. The reason why this kind of cutaneous distemper alone was taken cognizance of by the law doubtless was because the other was too well marked and obvious to require any diagnostic particularization. With the scriptural symptoms before us, let us compare the most recent description of modern leprosy of the malignant type given by an eye-witness who examined this subject: The scab comes on by degrees, in different parts of the body; the hair falls from the head and eyebrows; the nails loosen, decay, and drop off; joint after joint of the fingers and toes shrink up, and slowly fall away; the gums are absorbed, and the teeth disappear; the nose, the eyes, the tongue, and the palate are slowly consumed; and, finally, the wretched victim shrinks into the earth and disappears, while medicine has no power to stay the ravages of this fell disease, or even to mitigate sensibly its tortures (Thomson, Land and Book, p. 653, etc.); and again, Sauntering down the Jaffa road, on my approach to the Holy City, in a kind of dreamy maze, I was startled out of my reverie by the sudden apparition of a crowd of beggars, sans eyes, sans nose, sans hair, sans everything. They held up towards me their handless arms, unearthly sounds gurgled through throats without palates (ibid. p. 651). We merely ask by what rules of interpretation can we deduce from the Biblical leprosy, which is described as consisting in a rising scab, or bright spot deeper than the general level of the skin, and spreading, sometimes exhibiting live flesh, and which is non-contagious and curable, that loathsome and appalling malady described by Dr. Thomson and others?

3. As to the leprosy of garments, vessels, and houses, the ancient Jewish tradition is that leprosy of garments and houses was not to be found in the world generally, but was a sign and a miracle in Israel to guard them against an evil tongue (Maimonides, On Leprosy, 16:10). Some have thought garments worn by leprous patients intended. The discharges of the diseased skin absorbed into the apparel would, if infection were possible, probably convey disease, and it is known to be highly dangerous in some cases to allow clothes which have so imbibed the discharges of an ulcer to be worn again. The words of Jude, Mar 1:23, may seem to countenance this, Hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. But, 1st, no mention of infection occurs; 2d, no connection of the leprous garment with a leprous human wearer is hinted at; 3d, this would not help us to account for a leprosy of stone walls and plaster. Thus Dr. Mead (ut sq).) speaks at any rate plausibly of the leprosy of garments, but becomes unreasonable when he extends his explanation to that of walls. There is more probability in the idea of Sommer (Bibl. Abhandlugen, 1:224) that what is meant are the fusting-stains occasioned by damp and want of air, and which, when confirmed, cause the cloth to moulder and fall to pieces. Michaelis thought that wool from sheep which had died of a particular disease might fret into holes, and exhibit an appearance like that described in Lev 13:47; Lev 13:59 (Michaelis, art. 211, 3:290, 291).

But woolen cloth is far from being the only material mentioned; nay, there is even some reason to think that the words rendered in the A.V. warp and woof are not those distinct parts of the texture, but distinct materials. Linen, however, and leather are distinctly particularized, and the latter not only as regards garments, but anything (lit. vessel) made of skin for instance, bottles. This classing of garments and house-walls with the human epidermis as leprous has moved the mirth of some and the wonder of others. Yet modern science has established what goes far to vindicate the Mosaic classification as more philosophical than such cavils. It is now known that there are some skin- diseases which originate in an acarus, and others which proceed from a fungus. In these we may probably find the solution of the paradox. The analogy between the insect which frets the human skin and that which frets the garment that covers it, between the fungous growth that lines the crevices of the epidermis and that which creeps in the interstices of masonry, is close enough for the purposes of a ceremonial law, to which it is essential that there should be an arbitrary element intermingled with provisions manifestly reasonable. Michaelis (ibid. art. 211:3:293-9) has suggested a nitrous efflorescence on the surface of the stone, produced by saltpetre, or rather an acid containing it, and issuing in red spots, and cites the example of a house in Lubeck; he mentions, also, exfoliation of the stone from other causes; but probably these appearances would not be developed without a greater degree of damp than is common in Palestine and Arabia. It is manifest, also, that a disease in the human subject caused by an acarus or a fungus would be certainly contagious, since the propagative cause could be transferred from person to person. Some physicians, indeed, assert that only such skin-diseases are contagious. Hence, perhaps, arose a further reason for marking, even in their analogues among lifeless substances, the strictness with which forms of disease so arising were to be shunned.

Whatever the nature of the disorder might be, there can be no doubt, as Baumgarten has remarked (Comm. 2:175), that in the house respect was had to its possessor, since when it came to be in a good condition a cleansing or purification quite analogous to the man’s was prescribed. He was thus taught to see in his external environments a sign of what was or might be internal. The later Jews appear to have had some idea of this, though others viewed it differently. Some rabbins say that God sent this plague for the good of the Israelites into certain houses, that, they being pulled down, the treasure which the Amorites had hidden there might be discovered (Patrick on Lev 14:34). But there is good reason, adds the learned prelate, from these words [I put the plague of leprosy upon a house], to think that this plague was a supernatural stroke. Thus Aberbanel understands it: When he saith I put the plague, it shows that this thing was not natural, but proceeded from the special providence and pleasure of the blessed God.’ So the author of Sepher Cosri (pt. 2, 58): God inflicted the plague of leprosy upon houses and garments as a punishment for lesser sins, and when men continued still to multiply transgressions, then it invaded their bodies. Maimonides will have this to be the punishment of an evil tongue, i.e. detractions and calumny, which began in the walls of the offender’s house, and went no farther, but vanished if he repented of his sin; but if he persisted in his rebellious courses, it proceeded to his household stuff; and if he still went on, invaded his garments, and at last his body (More Nebochim, pt. 3, cap. 47).

Finally, as to the moral design of all these enactments. Every leper was a living sermon, a loud admonition to keep unspotted from the world. The exclusion of lepers from the camp, from the holy city, conveyed figuratively the same lesson as is done in the New Testament passages (Rev 21:27; Eph 5:5)…It is only when we take this view of the leprosy that we account for the fact that just this disease so frequently occurs as the theocratic punishment of sin. The image of sin is best suited for reflecting it: he who is a sinner before God is represented as a sinner in the eyes of man also, by the circumstance that he must exhibit before men the image of sin. God took care that ordinarily the image and the thing itself were perfectly coincident, although, no doubt, there were exceptions (Hengstenberg, Christol. on Jer 31:39). SEE UNCLEANNESS.

Literature. Besides the above notices and canons on leprosy given in the Mischna, tract Negaim; also by Maimonides, Yod Ha-Chezaka Hilchoth Mechosse Kapara, cap. 4, and Hilchoth Tamath Tsoraoth; and by Rashi and Rashbarn, Commentar. on Leviticus 13, 14; see, among modern writers, Mead, Medica Sacra, in his Medical Works (Edinb. 1765), 3:160, etc.; Michaelis, Laws of Moses (Lond. 1814), 3:257-305; Mason Good, The Study of Medicine (Lond. 1825), v. 585 sq.; Schilling, De lepra Commentationes (Lugd. Bat. 1778); Hensler, Vorn abendlandischen Aussatze im Mittelalter (Hamb. 1790); Jahn, Biblische A rchaologie (Vienna, 1818), I, 2:355 sq.; Bahr, Symbolik des Mosaischen Cultus (Heidelb. 1830), 2:459 sq., 512 sq.; Sommer, Biblische Abhacndlungen, vol. 1 (Bonn, 1846); Pruner, Die Krankheiten des Orients (Erlang. 1847), p. 163 sq.; Trusen, Die Sitten, Gebrauche und Kranklheiten der A lten Hebr. (Bresl. 1833); Saalschtz, Das Mosaische Recht (Berlin, 1853), 1:217 sq.; Keil, Handbuch der Biblischen A rchaologie (Frankfort-on-the- Main, 1858), 1:270 sq., 288 sq.; Bonorden, Lepra squamosa (Hal. 1795); Lutz, De avibus purgat. leprosi (Hal.1757); Withof, De leprosariis vet. Hebrueorum (Duisb. 1756); Murray, Historia leprce (Gott. 1749); J. Thomas, De lepra Grcecor. et Judaeor. (Basil. 1708); Norberg, De lepra A rabums (Lond. 1796); Hilary, Observ. on the Diseases of Barbadoes (Lond. 1759), p. 326 sq.; Sprengel, Pathol. 3:794-835; Frank, De curandis honzin. morbis, I, 2:476; Schnurrer, in the Halle Encyklop. 6:451 sq.; Rust, Handb. d. Chirurg. 2:581 sq.; Roussille-Chamseru. Recherches sur ie veritable. Caractere de la Lepre des Hebreux, and Relation Chirurg. de l’Armee de l’Orient (Paris, 1804); Cazenave and Schedel, A breg Pratique des Maladies de la Peau; Aretaeus, Maorb. Chron. 2:13; Fracastorius, De Morbis Contagiosis; Johannes Manardus, Epist. Medic. 7:2, and to 4:3, 3, 1 Avicenna, De Medic. v. 28, 19; also Dr. Sim in the North American Chirurgical Review, Sept. 1859, p. 876: Hecker, Die Elephantiasis oder Lepra Arabica (Lehr, 1858); also the monographs cited by Volbeding, Index, p. 42; and by Hase, Leben Jesu, p. 137. The ancient authorities are Hippocrates, Prophetica, lib. 12, ap. fin.; Galen, Explicati Linguaruam Hippocratis, and De Art. Curat. lib. 2; Celsus, De Medic. 5:28, 19. SEE DISEASE.

Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

Leprosy

(Heb. tsara’ath, a “smiting,” a “stroke,” because the disease was regarded as a direct providential infliction). This name is from the Greek lepra, by which the Greek physicians designated the disease from its scaliness. We have the description of the disease, as well as the regulations connected with it, in Lev. 13; 14; Num. 12:10-15, etc. There were reckoned six different circumstances under which it might develop itself, (1) without any apparent cause (Lev. 13:2-8); (2) its reappearance (9-17); (3) from an inflammation (18-28); (4) on the head or chin (29-37); (5) in white polished spots (38, 39); (6) at the back or in the front of the head (40-44).

Lepers were required to live outside the camp or city (Num. 5:1-4; 12:10-15, etc.). This disease was regarded as an awful punishment from the Lord (2 Kings 5:7; 2 Chr. 26:20). (See MIRIAM; GEHAZI; UZZIAH)

This disease “begins with specks on the eyelids and on the palms, gradually spreading over the body, bleaching the hair white wherever they appear, crusting the affected parts with white scales, and causing terrible sores and swellings. From the skin the disease eats inward to the bones, rotting the whole body piecemeal.” “In Christ’s day no leper could live in a walled town, though he might in an open village. But wherever he was he was required to have his outer garment rent as a sign of deep grief, to go bareheaded, and to cover his beard with his mantle, as if in lamentation at his own virtual death. He had further to warn passers-by to keep away from him, by calling out, ‘Unclean! unclean!’ nor could he speak to any one, or receive or return a salutation, since in the East this involves an embrace.”

That the disease was not contagious is evident from the regulations regarding it (Lev. 13:12, 13, 36; 2 Kings 5:1). Leprosy was “the outward and visible sign of the innermost spiritual corruption; a meet emblem in its small beginnings, its gradual spread, its internal disfigurement, its dissolution little by little of the whole body, of that which corrupts, degrades, and defiles man’s inner nature, and renders him unmeet to enter the presence of a pure and holy God” (Maclear’s Handbook O.T). Our Lord cured lepers (Matt. 8:2, 3; Mark 1:40-42). This divine power so manifested illustrates his gracious dealings with men in curing the leprosy of the soul, the fatal taint of sin.

Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary

Leprosy

(See LEPER.)

Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary

LEPROSY

Among the health laws God gave to Israel through Moses were laws concerning leprosy. However, both biblical scholars and medical scientists have clearly shown that what the Old Testament calls leprosy is not always the disease that we today call leprosy. The word used of leprosy in the Old Testament had a broad meaning and denoted a number of infectious skin diseases, some of which could be cured. It applied even to germ-carrying fungus or mildew on clothes and buildings (Lev 13:1-17; Lev 13:47-59; Lev 14:33-53).

The laws given through Moses were concerned not with treating the disease, but with isolating infected people so that others in the community did not become infected. When people saw any abnormality in their skin, even if only a rash, boil or falling out of the hair, they had to report it to the priests. The priests then isolated the infected person till they could ascertain whether the skin condition was a dangerous disease. If it was not, the person carried out a cleansing ceremony and returned to normal life in the community. But if it was real leprosy the person was excluded from the community entirely (Lev 13:18-46).

This exclusion of lepers from normal society resulted in many of them becoming beggars (Lev 13:45-46; Num 5:2; 2Ki 7:3; 2Ki 7:8; Luk 4:27; Luk 17:12). Important people may not have become beggars, but they still had to be isolated from the community (2Ch 26:21).

If people had leprosy or any other infectious skin disease, they were ceremonially unclean and therefore unable to join in the normal religious life of the nation. If they were healed, they had to go to the priest and carry out a cleansing ceremony before they could join in religious activities again (Mat 8:1-4).

The cleansing ceremony lasted eight days. Those who were healed, previously dead through their disease, symbolized their death by the ritual killing of a bird, symbolized their cleansing by draining the birds blood into a bowl of pure water, and symbolized their new life of freedom by releasing a second bird that had been stained with the blood of the first. They were then sprinkled by the priest with the blood of the bird seven times, after which they washed and shaved. They then returned to the community, but not yet to their own dwelling place (Lev 14:1-9). After waiting a further seven days, they offered sacrifices, then resumed normal religious, social and family life (Lev 14:10-32).

Fuente: Bridgeway Bible Dictionary

Leprosy

LEPROSY (, Mar 1:42, Luk 5:12; and , [leper] Mat 8:2; Mat 10:8; Mat 11:5; Mat 26:6, Mar 1:40; Mar 14:3, Luk 4:27; Luk 7:22; Luk 17:12).The name of a disease common in Palestine in the time of Christ, for the cleansing of which many mighty works were performed. The great difficulty in knowing the exact nature of the disease from which the leper suffered lies in the fact that the word leprosy is used as the English equivalent of three different foreign wordsthe Heb. (rath), the Gr. , and the Gr. and . And the subject is further complicated by the fact that the term last mentioned, elephantiasis, is used to-day for a disease of quite another nature from that described under that name by the early Greek medical writers.

(1) (raath) is the word translation in Authorized and Revised Versions leprosy; the root meaning is to smite. The symptoms of raath are fully described in Leviticus 13, and we have other scattered references to the disease in the OT. To enter into a full examination of OT leprosy would be out of place here, but it may be said that neither true leprosy (in the modern sense) nor any other known disease answers to all the signs described. We must either suppose, as is conceivable but not highly probable, that the disease described in Leviticus 13 has disappeared or greatly changed its character from new environment, or that the term raath included a great variety of skin diseases, some infectious in the modern sense, but all of them regarded in ancient times as rendering their victims ceremonially impure. Of these diseases, to take a few examples, we seem to be able to recognize psoriasis in the expression a leper white as snow; favus (a common disease among Eastern Jews to-day) and perhaps ringworm in the description of the plague of the head and the beard (Lev 13:29-30); and the disease vitiligo in the symptom termed freckled spot (, Lev 13:39), the exactly equivalent word (bohak) being used for this condition in Palestine and Arabia to-day. On the other hand, there are in the references to raath an extraordinary absence of the symptoms of true leprosy which will be mentioned lower down; the extremely slow process of this latter disease, and its practically hopeless outlook, ill tallies with either the frequent examinationsat intervals of seven daysor the elaborate directions, evidently meant for use, for restoration of a cured person to the community.

The history of medicine shows that in the undeveloped state of medical science many diseases which a later age learns to differentiate are classed as one disease; of no department has this been truer than of diseases affecting the skin. In the Middle Ages many persons affected with syphilis were put in the lazar hospitals of Northern Europe through the mistaken idea that they were lepers.

(2) (meaning rough or scaly) was the name given by the Greek physicians to a disease known to-day as psoriasis. It is a non-contagious, irritating, but by no means fatal disease, in which white scales form on various parts of, and occasionally all over, the body. In such cases the expression a leper white as snow might be not inappropriate. The disease is not hereditary nor in any marked degree repulsive, unless, as is unusual, the face is attacked; in this respect it is the very opposite of true leprosy, with which, moreover, it cannot be confused.

In the LXX Septuagint is used as the equivalent of raath; and as the former was well known, the translators apparently regarded this disease as the nearest equivalent to that described in the OT. In the same way the Synoptists, and among them Luke, the beloved physician, in using and , were using words which had a definite meaning to the outside world.

(3) True leprosythe of the Greeksis certainly no new disease, and references to it are found in Egyptian inscriptions many centuries before the Israelites left Egypt. It is also said that it was known in India at an equally primitive period. Hippocrates appears to refer to it under the name of the Phnician disease, and Galen under the name elephantiasis. It is stated by Pliny that it was brought to Europe from Syria by the army of Ptolemy (61 b.c.). From this time references to it are common, but always under the name elephantiasis.

It is evident, therefore, that at the time of the Gospels, in the classical medical sensewas primarily the well-known skin disease psoriasis. At the same time it is highly probable that the disease elephantiasistrue leprosytogether with other skin affections, e.g. vitiligo, favus, etc., were, from the point of view of ceremonial uncleanness, included in the term lepra, the word having, as is usual with medical terms, a much wider signification among the lay public than among the medical authors. The fact that tradition has from the earliest period pointed to true leprosy as the disease of the Bible, certainly makes it probable that it at least was one of the diseases recognized by the Rabbis as raath; and doubtless its specially horrible and fatal character has caused it to gradually displace all others in the popular mind.

It might be thought that Rabbinical commentaries or existing Jewish custom might help to throw a light on the subject, but neither of these is any real help. The Talmud teaches that raath refers to any disease with cutaneous eruptions or sores, and indeed some references appear to demonstrate that the writers considered the disease non-contagious; as, for example, the rule that a bridegroom, suspecting himself affected, might wait till seven days after his marriage before reporting his condition. The Rabbinical comments, instead of correlating the Levitical description with known medical facts, are rather engaged in impressing the importance of a literal adherence to the text of the Mosaic law.

Modern custom among the Jews in the East does not seem to view true leprosy with the aversion of even Moslems and Christians. Of six cases of well-marked leprosy among the Jews of Jerusalem which the present writer can recall, only one of them, a stranger from India, was in any way isolated, and he only after he had been in the English Hospital for some days among all the other patients; when he could no longer be kept he was sent to the Leper Hospital, where he died. The other cases, a Russian Jewess, three Spanish Jewesses, and a Spanish Jewish boy, all lived at home and mixed freely with their friends; the boy, indeed, long after he had marked symptoms of anaesthetic leprosy, continued to attend a large Jewish boys school without any sign of opposition or trouble. The Eastern Jews, on the other hand, manifest at times great fear of the contagiousness of tuberculous, or as they would popularly be called, scrofulous affections of the skin and of the lymphatic glands. These seem by tradition to be recognized as contagious.

When it is remembered that it is only in very recent years, in the life of the present generation of medical men, that the true nature both of leprosy (elephantiasis) and of scrofula has been discovered, it is difficult to believe that the Jews of Palestine, even in NT times, recognized the sharply-defined varieties of disease we do to-day. It is therefore probable that, while the leprosy of the NT certainly included some developments of the disease we now know as psoriasis and allied affections with a scaly eruption, and almost certainly a proportion of cases of true leprosy, it may also have included cases of lupus, scrofulous (i.e. tuberculous) glands, and varieties of parasitic skin affections, such as ringworm and favus, both of which are very common among the Jews of the East to-day.

True leprosy (elephantiasis) has for so many centuries been identified with the disease now called by that name, and, indeed, is likely to be for so many generations, that some description of this disease, especially as it occurs to-day in the Holy Land, is here not out of place. It is a disease of world-wide distribution, though apparently dying out of most European lands, where, as in England and France, it was once rampant. India, China, South Africa, and the Sandwich Islands are to-day the great habitats of leprosy. Climate appears to have no real effect on it. It is not hereditary; the children of lepers, if removed to healthy surroundings at an early age, seldom take the disease, while advance of the disease usually produces sterility. There is no doubt that it is contagious, but only by close personal contact; attendants on lepers run very little risk if they are careful; and they cannot, as was once supposed, carry the contagion to others. Although the almost world-wide custom of isolating lepers is founded upon the doubtful tradition of this being the special and peculiar disease described in the Mosaic law, yet from every point of view this is desirable both for the poor victims themselves, who are always to some degree incapacitated and suffering, and for the sake of their healthy neighbours. Although a leper in the street is no danger to the passer-by, he must in his home be a danger to his family, and no other disease reduces a human being for so many years to such a hideous wreck.

With respect to the ultimate cause of leprosy, Hansen has demonstrated (1871) that it is due to a special micro-organism, the bacillus lepr, similar in appearance, and to some extent in the action on the human tissues, to the tubercle bacillus. How the poison enters the body is not known. The disease occurs so sporadically that there must be some cause other than contagion; but what this may be has never been proved. The theory recently revived by Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson, F.R.C.S., that the disease is due to a diet of fish, is not borne out by the facts. In Palestine, in particular, the great majority of the lepers have never eaten fish at all, as they come from inland villages: fish is very seldom eaten by the Moslems in Palestine, and the only people who eat itthe Jews regularly, and the Christians at their fasts when living in the citiessuffer least from this disease.

Leprosy manifests itself in three forms: (1) the tubercular or nodular, (2) the anaesthetic, and (3) the mixed. Chronic cases, however they begin, tend to assume in the later stages the third or mixed type.

(1) In the tubereular form, after a prodromal period of indefinite duration during which there is a gradual loss of power and vivacity, obscure pains in the limbs and joints, feverish attacks and loss of appetite, the first definite signs to appear are symmetrical discoloured blotches, especially over the back. These blotches are at the first most marked during feverish attacks. Soon afterwards, definite tubercles, at first pink but later brownish, arise; the skin in these places is thickened and found to be infiltrated. The tubercles have a special tendency to form on the folds of the cheek, the nose, the lips, and the forehead. At this time some amount of ulceration about the soft palate often assists the diagnosis. The nodules enlarge and from time to time ulcerate and become encrusted with discharge. In cases where the face is particularly attacked the expression is entirely altered, and a most characteristic lion-like or satyr-like expression is developed. The leontiasis of Aretaeus and the satyrias (= satyriasis) of Aristotle (de Gen. [Note: Geneva NT 1557, Bible 1560.] Animal. iv. iii. 22) are both supposed on these grounds to have been true leprosy. As a rule the eyebrows fall out, and the eyes, in addition to suffering from keratitis, become staring in appearance through scarring about the eyelids. The voice is often hoarse, and the breathing loud and wheezing through ulceration of the vocal chords. The hands and feet, sometimes the first to suffer, always in time become ulcerated, though the most severe changes in them are probably secondary to nerve lesions. The disease from first to last has an average duration of nine years; if it runs its full course and is not terminated, as is usual, by the onset of tuberculosis, it leads to gradual mental decay, coma, and death.

(2) The ansthetic variety, if not complicated, is not nearly so horrible nor so fatal. Here the incidence of the disease falls on the nerve trunks, which may quite early in the disease be felt thickened from inflammation due to bacterial infection. The prodromal symptoms are similar to those described, but the onset of the disease is often not remarked until the patient finds that certain parts of the body are without sensation. Thus it is narrated of Father Damien that, although he had vague symptoms which made him suspicious, he was not convinced that he was a leper until be found he had placed his feet in scalding water without feeling the heat. As the disease progresses, the nerve lesions cause various discoloured patches and blisters on the skin, wasting of muscles and contraction of the tendons, a peculiar claw-like appearance of the hands,the result of partial paralysis,disfigurement of the nails, deep chronic ulceration of the foot, and finally progressive loss of various fingers and toes, and even of the feet and occasionally of the hands. Many of these later changes also occur in the tubercular form as the nerves become affected. An anaesthetic case which keeps to this type may last 20, 30, or even more years, and some such cases become cured, that is, the disease actually ceases to progress, though the results of its work can never be remedied.

(3) In Palestine, as has been already suggested, the great majority of cases are of the mixed form; cases of pure anaesthetic type are exceptional.

Leprosy in modern Palestine is not a common disease, but is prominently to the front from three causes: firstly, because of the interest excited in Christians of all Churches, and the special appeal made to their charitable feelings from the traditional view that these sufferers are the veritable lepers of the OT and NT; secondly, because its results are so manifest and repulsive, and its progress so slow, that a comparatively small number of cases are very much in evidence; and, lastly, because practically all the lepers in the land are segregated together by order of the Government in a few chief towns, all resorted to by travellers. There the lepers, being unable to work for a living, sit in groups in prominent places, and endeavour by an exhibition of the miseries of their condition to touch the sympathy of the passer-by. In Jerusalem, at any rate, they collect in this way large sums for their community. They live in huts provided by the Government at Silwn (near Jerusalem), Ramleh, and Nblus. At Damascus also there is a community, some members of which are also drawn from Palestine, but the majority from Syria and around Damascus; the traditional House of Naaman is their home. In addition to these, there is the voluntary communitynow numbering nearly 60at the excellent Moravian Hospital in Jerusalem; the patients there are not allowed to go begging, and are employed in various ways on the premises. Including these last, there must be between 100 and 120 lepers in Jerusalem, some 25 at Ramleh, about 40 at Nblus; altogether, allowing for some Palestine lepers in the Damascus community, there are not more than 200 known victims of this disease in the country. It is quite possible that sometimes cases may be hidden away, as with the Jewish cases above mentioned, by their relatives; but this cannot often happen in the villages, as the village sheikhs are very prompt in detecting early signs of the disease, and a suspected case is soon expelled from the community. Sometimes the heads of the village make mistakes; cases of this sort have come to the medical officer of the Leper Hospital in Jerusalem, and their friends learning that they have been mistaken, they have been restored to their rights.

It has been mentioned that one of the striking things about leprosy is that it occurs so sporadically. It is not the rule in Palestine, at any rate, that whole villages or families become leprous, but a case arises here and there. To illustrate this, we give a list of villages from which came some 60 cases that were in the Moravian Hospital during 1903. They are as follows:From Ramallah and Ain Ark, 3 cases each; from Zeta, Bait Ammar, Nahaln, Saidna Ali, ed-Dr, Deir Diwn, and Nazareth, 2 cases each; from Abu Ds, Ain Kairem, Br Zait, Bait Ummar, Bait Jebrn, Bettr, Beita, Biddu, Bait Hanna, Bait Jala, Bait Safafa, Asreh, Dra, Jerusalem, Feddar, Yasneh, Allr, Mesara, Faraun, Marassa, Kefrenji, Kefr Akb, Kefr Hris, Shaft, es-Salt, and Jummain, 1 each. In addition there were 3 Bedawn from scattered tribes, one gipsy, one case from Mosul, and two from Greece. Any one who will consult a map of modern Palestine will appreciate from how wide an area, both W. and E. of the Jordan, these cases come. Probably there is no district that does not furnish cases at some time.

The only kind of treatment that can alleviate the disease is a well-managed Leper Home. In the Jerusalem Leper Hospital (founded in 1867 and formally taken over by the Moravian Brethren in 1881) all that medical science and Christian kindness can accomplish is done.

Leprosy in the Gospels.It has been often pointed out that, whereas the cure of disease in general is called healing, (), that of the lepers is called cleansing (). This was, no doubt, appropriate on account of the very evident restoration of cleanness of skin, but primarily because the miracle enabled the leper to become ceremonially clean. Doubtless the lepers drifting about the land had intractable skin diseases, and as they were shut out from the temple, the synagogues, certainly in all the towns, and to a large extent from the social life of their fellow-beings, their lot was truly pitiable. Their cleansing meant much more than getting rid of a disagreeable and often, doubtless, painful disease, repulsive to all their fellow-men; it meant restoration to the worship and service of God.

Of lepers mentioned in the NT we have but one named, Simon of Bethany (Mat 26:6, Mar 14:3), probably a grateful recipient of the Saviours mercy. Tradition has made the Lazarus of the parable a leper, and the terms lazzaro for leper and lazar-house for leper hospital were a result of this. Also the order of the Knights of Lazarus, founded during the Crusades, made the care of lepers one of their special duties, and they had always a leper as their Grand Master. But though Lazarus was full of sores, the very account in the parable that he lay in such intimate contact with passers-by would, apart from the express omission of the statement in the parable, make his being a leper highly improbable.

In spite of the great prominence given to the cleansing of lepers both in Jesus account of His own works (Mat 11:5, Luk 7:22) and in His directions to His disciples (Mat 10:8), we have only two actual incidents described. (1) The incident of the man whom Jesus touched, with the words, I will, be thou clean, and whose grateful excess of zeal prevented Jesus from entering that certain city, and drove Him to seek seclusion in the wilderness (Mat 8:2 || Mar 1:42 || Luk 5:12). (2) The story of the nine thankless lepers and the grateful tenth, who was a Samaritan (Luk 17:11 ff.). It is noticeable that he turned back because he was healed (); but he was not yet finally cleansed (), because he had not yet been to the priest; unless, indeed, it is because he was a Samaritan that he is spoken of as healed rather than cleansed.

Literature.This is enormous. Here only a selection of modern articles in English is given, which will furnish all necessary information and references for following up the subject:P. S. Abraham, art. Leprosy in Allbutts System of Medicine, ii. 41; J. R. Bennett, Diseases of the Bible, R.T.S. 1887; T. Chaplin, Diseases of the Bible, Proceedings of Victoria Institute, vol. xxxiv.; C. V. Carter, Leprosy and Elephantiasis, 1874; Hansen and Looft, Leprosy in its Clinical and Pathological Aspects, 1895; A. Macalister, art. Leprosy in Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible ; do. by C. Creighton in EBi [Note: Bi Encyclopaedia Biblica.] ; Report of the Leprosy Commission to India, 1893; A. S. Waldstein, art. Leprosy in Jewish Encyclopedia. On the moral aspects of leprosy in NT, see Edersheim, Life and Times, i. 491 ff.; Expositor, iv. vi. [1892] 443 ff.

E. W. G. Masterman.

Fuente: A Dictionary Of Christ And The Gospels

Leprosy

LEPROSY.This term, as used in Scripture, seems to include not only true leprosy (elephantiasis)probably the disease of Jobbut also such skin diseases as psoriasis, ring-worm, and vitiligo. For the priestly regulations as to the diagnosis of the disease and the treatment of lepers, see art. Clean and Unclean, 5. The leprosy in garments (Lev 13:47 ff.) seems to be an effect of fungus or mildew, while that in houses (Lev 14:34 ff.) is probably dry-rot.

Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible

Leprosy

See Leper

Fuente: The Poor Mans Concordance and Dictionary to the Sacred Scriptures

Leprosy

Leprosy is a name that was given by the Greek physicians to a scaly disease of the skin. During the dark ages it was indiscriminately applied to all chronic diseases of the skin, and more particularly to elephantiasis, to which latter, however, it does not bear the slightest resemblance. The disease, as it is known at the present day, commences by an eruption of small reddish spots slightly raised above the level of the skin, and grouped in a circle. These spots are soon covered by a very thin, semi-transparent scale or epidermis, of a whitish color, and very smooth, which in a little time falls off, and leaves the skin beneath red and uneven. As the circles increase in diameter the skin recovers its healthy appearance towards the center fresh scales are formed, which are now thicker, and superimposed one above the other, especially at the edges, so that the center of the scale appears to be depressed. The scales are of a grayish white color, and have something of a micaceous or pearly luster. The circles are generally of the size of a shilling or half-crown, but they have been known to attain half a foot in diameter. The disease generally affects the knees and elbows, but sometimes it extends over the whole body; in which case the circles become confluent. It does not at all affect the general health, and the only inconvenience it causes the patient is a slight itching when the skin is heated; or, in inveterate cases, when the skin about the joints is much thickened, it may in some degree impede the free motion of the limbs. It is common to both sexes, to almost all ages, and all ranks of society. It is not in the least infectious, but it is always difficult to be cured, and in old persons, when it is of long standing, may be pronounced incurable. It is commonly met with in this country and in all parts of Europe. On turning to the Mosaic account, we find three species mentioned, which were all included under the generic term of Bahret, or ‘bright spot.’ The first is called Bhaq, which signifies ‘brightness,’ but in a subordinate degree. This species did not render a person unclean. The second was called Bahret lebanh, or a bright white Bahret. The third was Bahret khh, or dusky Bahret, spreading in the skin. These two last were also called ‘a stroke,’ as if a chastisement, and rendered a person unclean. The characteristic marks of the Bahret lebanh mentioned by Moses, are a glossy white and spreading scale upon an elevated base, the elevation depressed in the middle, the hair on the patches participating in the whiteness, and the patches themselves perpetually increasing. There are some other slight affections mentioned by name in Leviticus, which the priest was required to distinguish from leprosy. If a person had any of the above diseases he was brought before the priest to be examined. If the priest found the distinctive signs of a contagious leprosy, the person was immediately declared unclean. If the priest had any doubt on the subject, the person was put under confinement for seven days, when he was examined a second time. If in the course of the preceding week the eruption had made no advance, he was shut up for another seven days; and if then the disease was still stationary, and had none of the distinctive signs above noticed, he was declared clean (Leviticus 13).

It may be useful here to subjoin a description of elephantiasis, or the leprosy of the Middle Ages, as this is the disease from which most of the prevalent notions concerning leprosy have been derived, and to which the notices of lepers contained in modern books of travels exclusively refer.

Elephantiasis first of all makes its appearance by spots of a reddish, yellowish, or livid hue, irregularly disseminated over the skin and slightly raised above its surface. These spots are glossy, and appear oily, or as if they were covered with varnish. After they have remained in this way for a longer or shorter time, they are succeeded by an eruption of tubercles. These are soft, roundish tumors, varying in size from that of a pea to that of an olive, and are of a reddish or livid color. They are principally developed on the face and ears, but in the course of years extend over the whole body. The face becomes frightfully deformed; the forehead is traversed by deep lines and covered with numerous tubercles; the eyebrows become bald, swelled, furrowed by oblique lines, and covered with nipple-like elevations; the eyelashes fall out, and the eyes assume a fixed and staring look; the lips are enormously thickened and shining; the beard falls out; the chin and ears are enlarged and beset with tubercles; the lobe and ala of the nose are frightfully enlarged and deformed; the nostrils irregularly dilated, internally constricted, and excoriated; the voice is hoarse and nasal, and the breath intolerably fetid. After some time, generally after some years, many of the tubercles ulcerate, and the matter which exudes from them dries to crusts of a brownish or blackish color; but this process seldom terminates in cicatrization. The extremities are affected in the same way as the face. The hollow of the foot is swelled out, so that the sole becomes flat; the sensibility of the skin is greatly impaired, and, in the hands and feet, often entirely lost; the joints of the toes ulcerate and fall off one after the other; insupportable fetor exhales from the whole body. The patient’s general health is not affected for a considerable time, and his sufferings are not always of the same intensity as his external deformity. Often, however, his nights are sleepless or disturbed by frightful dreams; he becomes morose and melancholy; he shuns the sight of the healthy, because he feels what an object of disgust he is to them, and life becomes a loathsome burden to him; or he falls into a state of apathy, and after many years of such an existence he sinks either from exhaustion, or from the supervention of internal disease. The Greeks gave the name of elephantiasis to this disease, because the skin of the person affected with it was thought to resemble that of an elephant, in dark color, ruggedness, and insensibility, or, as some have thought, because the foot, after the loss of the toes, when the hollow of the sole is filled up and the ankle enlarged, resembles the foot of an elephant. About the period of the Crusades elephantiasis spread itself like an epidemic over all Europe, even as far north as the Faroe Islands; and henceforth, owing to the above-named mistakes, everyone became familiar with leprosy under the form of the terrible disease that has just been described. Leper or lazar-houses abounded everywhere; as many as 2000 are said to have existed in France alone. The disease was considered to be contagious possibly only on account of the belief that was entertained respecting its identity with Jewish leprosy, and the strictest regulations were enacted for secluding the diseased from society. Towards the commencement of the seventeenth century the disease gradually disappeared from Europe, and is now confined to intertropical countries. It existed in Faroe as late as 1676, and in the Shetland Islands in 1736, long after it had ceased in the southern parts of Great Britain. The best authors of the present day who have had an opportunity of observing the disease do not consider it to be contagious. There seems, however, to be little doubt as to its being hereditary.

Fuente: Popular Cyclopedia Biblical Literature

Leprosy

This loathsome and, for millennia, incurable disease is often mentioned in scripture. Some persons were smitten with leprosy as a direct judgement from God, as were Miriam (though she in grace was subsequently cured), Gehazi, and Amaziah; in the case of Gehazi the disease was to descend also to his seed. God’s power alone could cure the leper, as seen in the case of Naaman the Syrian, and in the many lepers that the Lord cured when on earth. Amaziah dwelt in a separate house, and the lepers were enjoined to proclaim their own condition by calling out, “Unclean, Unclean.” Lev 13:45.

Leprosy is a vivid type of sin, and its insidious working, producing an unclean condition. Lev 13 and Lev. 14 treat of the way it was to be discovered and dealt with by the priests as those having the mind of God. The instruction in Lev 13:12-13, though seemingly paradoxical, is significant: when the leprosy covered all the skin, the priest was to pronounce the man clean: “it is all turned white: he is clean.” That is, the leprosy, instead of striking inwards, had worked itself out, typical of a man truly confessing his sin; then the effect only of the defilement remains.

Besides leprosy in the person, laws were also given as to leprosy in a garment, answering to the sin that may be in a person’s surroundings, which must be cleansed or destroyed. There is also leprosy in the house (when they were come into the land), answering to manifest sin in a christian assembly, which must be removed, or the assembly must be dissolved. Holiness becomes God’s house.

Fuente: Concise Bible Dictionary

Leprosy

Law concerning

Lev 13; Lev 22:4; Num 5:1-3; Num 12:14; Deu 24:8; Mat 8:4; Luk 5:14; Luk 17:14

Sent as a judgment:

– On Miriam

Num 12:1-10

– On Gehazi

2Ki 5:27

– On Uzziah

2Ch 26:20-21

Entailed

2Ki 5:27

Isolation of lepers

Lev 13:46; Num 5:2; Num 12:14; 2Ki 15:5; 2Ch 26:21

Separate burial of lepers

2Ch 26:23

Instances of leprosy not mentioned above:

– Four lepers outside Samaria

2Ki 7:3

– Azariah

2Ki 15:5

– Simon

Mar 14:3

Healed:

– Miriam

Num 12:13-14

– Naaman

2Ki 5:8-14

– By Jesus

Mat 8:3; Mar 1:40-42; Luk 5:13; Luk 17:12-14

– Disciples empowered to heal

Mat 10:8

Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible

Leprosy

Leprosy. The predominant and characteristic form of leprosy in the Old Testament is a white variety, covering either the entire body or a large tract of its surface, which has obtained the name of Lepra mosaica. Such were the cases of Moses, Miriam, Naaman and Gehazi. Exo 4:6; Num 12:10; 2Ki 5:1; 2Ki 5:27. Compare Lev 13:13. But, remarkably enough, in the Mosaic ritual diagnosis of the disease, Lev 13:1; Lev 14:1, this kind, when overspreading the whole surface, appears to be regarded as “clean.” Lev 13:12-13; Lev 13:16-17.

The Egyptian bondage, with its studied degradations and privations, and especially the work of the kiln under an Egyptian sun, must have had a frightful tendency to generate this class of disorders. The sudden and total change of food, air, dwelling and mode of life, caused by the Exodus, to this nation of newly-emancipated slaves, may possibly have had a further tendency to produce skin disorders, and severe repressive measures may have been required in the desert-moving camp to secure the public health or to allay the panic of infection.

Hence, it is possible that many, perhaps most, of this repertory of symptoms may have disappeared with the period of the Exodus, and the snow-white form, which had pre-existed, may alone have ordinarily continued in a later age.

The principal morbid features are a rising or swelling, a scab or baldness, and a bright or white spot. Lev 13:2. But especially a white swelling in the skin, with a change of the hair of the part from the natural black to white or yellow, Lev 13:3-4: Lev 13:10; Lev 13:20; Lev 13:25; Lev 13:30, or an appearance of a taint going “deeper than the skin,” or, again, “raw flesh” appearing in the swelling, Lev 13:10; Lev 13:14-15, was a critical sign of pollution.

The tendency to spread seems especially to have been relied on. A spot most innocent in other respects, if it “spread much abroad,” was unclean; whereas, as before remarked, the man so wholly overspread with the evil that it could find no further range was on the contrary “clean.” Lev 13:12-13. These two opposite criteria seem to show tha, whilst the disease manifested activity, the Mosaic law imputed pollution to and imposed segregation on the suffered, but that the point at which it might be viewed as having run its course, was the signal for his readmission to communion.

It is clear that the leprosy of Leviticus 13-14 means any severe disease spreading on the surface of the body in the way described, and so shocking of aspect, or so generally suspected of infection, that public feeling called for separation.

It is now undoubted that the “leprosy” of modern Syria, and which has a wide range in Spain, Greece and Norway, is the Elephantiasis graecorum. It is said to have been brought home by the crusaders into the various countries of western and northern Europe. It certainly was not the distinctive white leprosy, nor do any of the described symptoms in Leviticus 13 point to Elephantiasis. “White as snow,” 2Ki 5:27, would be inapplicable to Elephantiasis as to small-pox.

There remains a curious question as regards the leprosy of garments and houses. Some have thought that the garments worn by leprous patients was intended. This classing of garments and house-walls with the human epidermis, as leprous, has moved the mirth of some and the wonder of others. Yet modern science has established what goes far to vindicate the Mosaic classification as more philosophical than such cavils. It is now known that there are some skin diseases which originate in an acarus, and others which proceed from a fungus. In these, we may probably find the solution of the paradox.

The analogy between the insect which frets the human skin and that which frets the garment that covers it — between the fungous growth that lines the crevices of the epidermis and that which creeps in the interstices of masonry — is close enough for the purposes of a ceremonial law. It is manifest also that a disease in the human subject caused by an acarus or by a fungus would be certainly contagious, since the propagative cause could be transferred from person to person.

(Geikie in his “Life of Christ” says: “Leprosy signifies smiting, because it was supposed to be a direct visitation of Heaven. It began with little specks on the eyelids and on the palms of the hands, and gradually spread over different parts of the body, bleaching the hair white wherever it showed itself, crusting the affected parts with shining scales, and causing swellings and sores.

From the skin, it slowly ate its way through the tissues, to the bones and joints, and even to the marrow, rotting the whole body piecemeal. The lungs, the organs of speech and hearing, and the eyes, were attacked in turn, till at last, consumption or dropsy brought welcome death. The dread of infection kept men aloof from the sufferer; and the law proscribed him as above all men unclean. The disease was hereditary to the fourth generation.”)

Leprosy in the United States. — The Medical Record, February, 1881, states that, from the statistics collected by the Dermatological Society, it appears that there are between fifty and one hundred lepers in the United States at present.

Is modern leprosy contagious? — Dr. H.S. Piffard of New York, in the Medical Record, February, 1881, decides that it is in a modified degree contagious. “A review of the evidence led to the conclusion that this disease was not contagious by ordinary contact; but it may be transmitted by the blood and secretions.

A recent writer, Dr. Bross, a Jesuit missionary attached to the lazaretto at Trinidad, takes the ground that the disease, in some way or other, is transmissible. It is a well-established fact that, when leprosy has once gained for itself a foothold in any locality, it is apt to remain there and spread. The case of the Sandwich Islands illustrates the danger. Forty years ago, the disease did not exits there; now one-tenth of the inhabitants are lepers.”

This is further confirmed by the fact, stated by Dr. J. Hutchinson, F.R.S., that “We find that nearly everywhere the disease is most common on the seashore, and that, when it spreads inland, it generally occurs on the shores of lakes or along the course of large rivers.”

Leprosy as a type of sin. — “Being the worst form of disease, leprosy was fixed upon by God to be the especial type of sin, and the injunctions regarding it had reference to its typical character.” It was

(1) hereditary;

(2) contagious;

(3) ever tending to increase;

(4) incurable except by the power of God;

(5) a shame and disgrace;

(6) rendering one alone in the world;

(7) deforming, unclean;

(8) “separating the soul from God, producing spiritual death; unfitting it forever for heaven and the company of they holy, and insuring its eternal banishment, as polluted and abominable.”

(9) Another point is referred to by Thompson (in “The Land and the Book”): “Some, as they look on infancy, reject, with horror, the thought that sin exists within. But so might any one say, who looked upon the beautiful babe in the arms of a leprous mother. But time brings forth the fearful malady. New-born babes of leprous parents are often as pretty and as healthy in appearance as any; but by and by, its presence and workings become visible, in some of the signs described in the thirteenth chapter of Leviticus.” — Editor).

Fuente: Smith’s Bible Dictionary

Leprosy

akin to lepros (above), is mentioned in Mat 8:3; Mar 1:42; Luk 5:12-13. In the removal of other maladies the verb “to heal” (iaomai) is used, but in the removal of “leprosy,” the verb “to cleanse” (katharizo), save in the statement concerning the Samaritan, Luk 17:15, “when he saw that he was healed.” Mat 10:8; Luk 4:27 indicate that the disease was common in the nation. Only twelve cases are recorded in the NT, but these are especially selected. For the Lord’s commands to the leper mentioned in Matthew 8 and to the ten in Luke 17, see Lev. 14:2-32.

Leprosy

Leprosy

leprosy

Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary

Leprosy

Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia

Leprosy

Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

Leprosy

Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary

Leprosy

Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary

LEPROSY

Fuente: Bridgeway Bible Dictionary

Leprosy

Fuente: A Dictionary Of Christ And The Gospels

Leprosy

Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible

Leprosy

Fuente: The Poor Mans Concordance and Dictionary to the Sacred Scriptures

Leprosy

Fuente: Popular Cyclopedia Biblical Literature

Leprosy

Fuente: Concise Bible Dictionary

Leprosy

Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible

Leprosy

Fuente: Smith’s Bible Dictionary

Leprosy

Fuente: Vine’s Dictionary of New Testament Words

Leprosy

Fuente: Biblical and Theological Dictionary