PART III.
THE ETIOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE DISEASE.
To conclude the present hurried sketch of the British leprosy of the middle ages, it now only remains for me to consider, in relation to the etiology or causation of the disease, the rank, age, sex, etc., of those that were attacked by it; the effects of its hereditary transmission; and the question of its propagation by contagion. In connection with this last subject, I shall attempt to bring together under one view the stringent regulations and usages that were adopted by our ancestors, with a view of preventing the diffusion of the disease by means of communication between the infected and the healthy; and at the same time consider the light in which the despised lepers were regarded both by the civil and ecclesiastical law.
Rank of the Persons attacked by Leprosy.
In this country the leprosy of the middle ages seems to have had its largest share of victims in the lower classes of society—amongst the “villeyns” or bondsmen of these times, and the poorer peasantry and burgesses, who, when shut up in the hospitals, were obliged either to depend upon the funds of these institutions, or to beg for their support. The exact trade and calling of the individuals admitted into the Scottish and English hospitals can only be very imperfectly gathered from one or two casual notices.[218]
Among the patients of Kingcase leper hospital, in Ayrshire, I have only found one whose rank I can trace. In the burgh of Prestwick[219] records for 1478-9, Anne Kerd is formally accused before the magistrates of the burgh of visiting Kingcase, and further “hir seik soun, att is lepper, repairis daili in her house [in Prestwick].” This Anne Kerd, having “a sick son that is leprous” seems from the old Liber Communitatis, etc., de Prestwick of 1470 to have had assigned her a very small fragment of the burgh lands only, viz. “a porciunkle of commoun lande quilk acht after hir lyve to John Haveris airis (which belonged after her life [death] to John Haveris’ heirs).”[220]
Amongst the citizens of Glasgow who were at different times in the latter part of the sixteenth century ordered by the magistrates to be visited, under the suspicion of labouring under leprosy, most are recorded by their mere Christian name and surname; but two or three are entered in the burgh records in such terms as to show their occupation and probable rank, as “Robert ——, fleschor,” in 1573; “Mr. James ——, fleschor,” “Patrick Bogle, maltman,” and “Andro Lawson, merchand,” in 1581.[221] One of these individuals is reported by the Water Bailies as confined in the Glasgow leper hospital at the Brigend[222] in 1589, along with five other lepers. The whole list is interesting for our present purpose, as showing the trade and calling of the infected inmates, viz. “Andro Lawson, merchand; Stevin Gilmor, cordener; Robert Bogill, sone to Patrick Bogle; Patrick Birstall, tailzeour; Johne Thomsoun, sone to Johne Thomsoune, tailzeour; Daniel Cunninghame, tinclar.””
I am not aware of the existence of any similar complete list of the inmates of other British leper hospitals, to which I could refer with the view of ascertaining the occupation and rank of those that occupied them. We have scattered records, however, to show that men of riches occasionally became the victims of the disease, and passed their subsequent term of life in the leper hospitals. Thus, Jenkins, in speaking of the St. Mary Magdalene lazar-house at Exeter, states, “Richard Orange, Esq., a gentleman of noble parentage, and mayor of this city (Exeter) in 1454, being infected with the leprosy, notwithstanding his great wealth, submitted himself to a residence in this hospital, where he lived many years, and finished his days, and was buried in the chancel of the chapel. His grave, with a mutilated inscription, is still extant.”[223]