[292] Chronicles, vol. i. p. 317.
[293] Many of the older medical authors lay down various and most contradictory lists of articles of food as capable of producing leprosy—some accusing too great quantities of animal diet—others blaming too much vegetable diet as the cause, while a third class, as Theodoric, impugn too free a use of either or both (nimium usum carnis vaccinae, buballinae, lentium et omnium leguminum. Theodoric, c. 55). Some authors state the most strange doctrines on this point. Thus Bernhard Gordon gravely states, that to partake of fish and milk in the same meal does induce leprosy (comedere lac et pisces in eadam mensa inducit Lepram. Lilium Medicinae, p. 48). The same idea is repeated from Avicenna down to our countryman Gilbert, and it is probably not unworthy of being remarked that the same prejudice in regard to the influence of a mixed fish and milk diet prevails, or prevailed till of late, in such opposite points as Madeira and Hindostan.—(Heberden’s paper on “Elephantiasis in Madeira,” p. 29; Walker, in Calcutta Medical and Physical Transactions, vol. i. p. 4 of his “Account of the Medical Opinions of the Hindus on Leprosy.” See also Sir William Jones’ Works, vol. i. p. 556.)
[294] History and Chronicles, vol. i. p. lx.
[295] Marsden’s History of Sumatra, containing an account of the Government, Laws, etc., pp. 151 and 201.
[296] See references formerly given to the works of Mackenzie, Olafsen, Troil, Barrow, Henderson, Hooker, etc.
[297] Some scattered records of the leper hospital at Hamel en Aarde by Messrs. Halbeck and Leitner, are to be found in the Periodical Accounts relating to the Missions of the Church, vol. ix. p. 345, 482, etc., as kindly pointed out to me by Dr. William Brown. In 1824 the hospital contained 110 lepers.
[298] See Heberden, Adams, and Heineken’s papers, already referred to.
[299] Hoest’s Reise nach Marokos, p. 248, calls the disease Sghidam (Juddam). Lempriere’s Tour from Gibraltar to Tangier, Morocco, etc., in 1789, in Pinkerton’s Collection, vol. xv. p. 689, describes the disease as true leprosy. Jackson’s Account of the Empire of Morocco (1801), gives an account of the leper hospital or village near Morocco.
[300] Niebuhr states that three different varieties of leprosy are known in Arabia in modern times—viz. the Bohak, Barras, and Juddam. “There is (he states) a quarter in Bagdad surrounded with walls, and full of barracks, to which lepers are carried by force, if they retire not thither voluntarily. They come out every Friday to ask for alms.”—(Pinkerton’s Collection of Voyages, vol. xviii. p. 170.)
[301] Dejean in Hensler’s Abendländischen Aufsatze, p. 240.