Leprosy and its prevention : illustrated by Norwegian experience / by Robson Roose.

  • Edward Charles Robson Roose
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Leprosy and its prevention : illustrated by Norwegian experience / by Robson Roose. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    diffusion of contagia increased and accelerated, but the gravity of the symptoms is liable to be much aggra- vated by the circumstances attendant upon prolonged and severe campaigns. The Romans doubtless con- veyed the germs of the disease to Spain, France, and Germany, and although there are no records which enable us to trace its progress in Europe during several hundreds of years afterwards, the steps that were taken to check its spread in the seventh and following centuries sufficiently indicate the alarming frequency of the disease and the terrible character it had assumed. We learn from Virchow's researches that in the early part of the seventh century, leper asylums existed in Italy and Switzerland, and at Metz, Verdun, Maestricht, etc. In 757 the Frankish King Pepin, and Charlemagne in 789, enacted laws with regard to the marriage of lepers. Dr. Hirsch's investigations show that leper hospitals were established in the Frankish kingdom in the eighth and ninth centuries ; in Ireland in the year 869; in Spain in 1007; in Eng- land in the eleventh century; in Scotland and the Netherlands in the twelfth, and in Norway in the thirteenth century.