Thesis on tubercular leprosy, or the elephantiasis græcorum : with some general observations on that disease as it prevails at the Cape of Good Hope : submitted to the Medical Faculty of the Senatus Academicus of the University of Edinburgh / by Alex. Abercrombie, M.D.

  • Abercrombie, Alexander.
Date:
1861
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Thesis on tubercular leprosy, or the elephantiasis græcorum : with some general observations on that disease as it prevails at the Cape of Good Hope : submitted to the Medical Faculty of the Senatus Academicus of the University of Edinburgh / by Alex. Abercrombie, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    * of nosological arrangement. The word Lepra is derived from the Greek XeTrgog, scaber; and it was intended therefore, it may be presumed, to indicate a cutaneous disease, and one of a scaly nature, which ought to be classed strictly, as has been done by writers on skin diseases of the present day under the order Squamse. In this sense it may apply strictly to the leprosy of Scripture, a disease which ren- dered the subject of it unclean, and, in its more inveterate forms, necessitated his being excluded altogether from society. Three different forms of that disease, which it is believed was brought originally from Egypt, are de- scribed under the general nam©, of Berat; one named Boah, meaning brightness in an inferior sense, but which was not considered contagious, nor such as to render neces- sary that the subject of it should be excluded from society; and two called Tsorat, implying venom or malignity, and which, whilst considered highly contagious, rendered it im- perative on the person affected with the disease to live isolated, and be cut off from all intercourse with his fellow men. The Vitiligo of Oelsus, which Dr Mason Good is of opinion makes the nearest approach to the leprosy of Scripture, is another cutaneous affection, to which, from the description given of it, the term Lepra might with propriety be applied. He describes also three varieties of it—the aXpt or white, the (isXag or black, and the ?^euxjj or bright white ; the two former not being generally difficult of cure, whilst the latter was regarded as strictly incurable. But, besides these diseases, and many others which might be mentioned, and which, from the mere circumstance of their inveteracy, their contagious nature, or their incurability, were included under the generic name of Leprosy, we find two others more especially, which do not at all come up to the meaning of the Greek word from which that term is derived. I allude to the Elephantiasis Arabum and the Elephantiasis Grsecorum^, diseases, I may observe at the same time, widely different from each other, and having no features in common. The former, better known by the name of the Barbadoes swelled- leg, as being endemic in that island, although also met with in various other parts of the world, was so designated from a supposed resemblance of the limb affected, from its