[282] Debes’ Færoæ et Færoa Reserata, p. 311.
[283] Dictionnaire des Sc. Medicales, tom. xi. p. 419; Rayer’s Treatise on the Diseases of the Skin (London, 1831), pp. 740 and 747.
[284] Memoires de la Soc. Roy. de Medecine (1776), p. 167.
[285] Ibid. (1782-83), p. 188.
[286] Bellenden’s Translation of Boece’s History, p. lviii.
[287] See, for example, among non-medical authors, various of these causes alleged for the disease in Heron’s History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 266 (unwholesome diet, uncomfortable lodgings, dirty clothing). Hooker’s Iceland, vol. i. p. 189 (ascribes it to former use of woollen garments). Taylor’s Index Monasticus, p. xii. (owing to personal filth, close and bad lodging, etc.) White’s Natural History of Selborne, Letter 37 (formerly produced by poverty, want of fresh meats, and vegetables, etc.) etc. etc. Similar opinions are offered in various medical works.
[288] The Canons of the Anglo-Saxon Church urged it as a duty upon the charitable to give to the poor, meat, mund, fire, fodder, bedding, bathing, and clothes. Wilkin’s Leges Anglo-Saxonicae Ecclesiasticae et Civiles, p. 94. Turner’s History of the Anglo-Saxons, vol. ii. p. 72.
[289] Hollinshed mentions the “multitude of chimnies latelie erected” as one of the “three things marvellouslie altered in England” about the beginning of the sixteenth century. (Chronicles of England, etc. edit. of 1807, vol. i. p. 317; and Strutt’s Horda Angel-Cynnan, 1774, vol. i. p. 104.) When we consider this we shall scarcely wonder that the smoke of coals was formerly looked upon as a noted cause of disease, and was at one time actually prohibited in London and Southwark. (Stow’s Survey of London, p. 925. Evelyn’s Fumifugium, 1661. Macpherson’s Annals of Commerce, vol. i. p. 474.) In 1307 fires were ordered not to be lighted near the Tower because the Queen was going to reside there. (Macpherson, ut supra, see the edict in Rymer’s Foedera, vol. ii. p. 1057.)
[290] The last Archbishop of Glasgow (says Arnott) put on a clean shirt once a week.—History of Edinburgh, p. 259.
[291] Straw was first used for the king’s bed in 1242, in the reign of Henry III., whose court was considered the most polite in Europe. (Dr. Henry’s History of Great Britain, vol. iii. p. 507.) Some estates in England were held by the tenure of the proprietors finding clean straw for the king’s bed, and litter for his chamber. (Henry, ut supra; Camden’s Britannia, vol. i. p. 311; Index Monasticus, p. 12.) In the charter granted by Robert the Bruce to the Burgh of Ayr, the providing of this latter item for him and his successors, for three days and nights, whenever they visited the town, is specially entered in the reddenda—“Et inveniendo nobis et heredibus nostris per vices in adventibus nostris et heredum nostrorum apud Are per tres dies et noctes literium pro aulâ nostrâ.” (Records of Prestwick, p. 128.) The office of rush-strewer was continued till a late period on the list of the royal household (Craik and Macfarlane’s History of England, vol. i. p. 644.)