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XVIII. Observations on the Lepra Arabum, or Elephantiasis of the Greeks, as it appears in India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2009

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It is, I presume, a truth pretty well established, that all such cutaneous affections as are not ushered in by particular febrile symptoms, are more common and more inveterate in hot than in temperate climates: but, with the exception of Doctors Hillary and Towne, I am not aware that any author on tropical diseases has bestowed much attention on maladies of this description, though some of them are singular in their character, and most of them very untractable.

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Papers Read Before the Society
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Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1827

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References

page 282 note * See Pocock's Travels, vol. ii. page 122.Google Scholar

page 282 note † See Volney's Travels in Egypt, vol. i. page 248.Google Scholar

page 282 note ‡ See Stedman's Surinam, vol. ii. page 285.Google Scholar

page 282 note § See Browne's Travels in Africa, page 332.Google Scholar

page 282 note ‖ On the other hand, Pliny tells us that Elephantiasis was common in Egypt—Nat. Hist, lib. xxvi. chap. 1.

page 282 note ¶ Vide Op. Galen, class vii. page 107, F.Google Scholar

page 283 note * See Niebuhr's, Travels in Arabia, vol. ii. page 278.Google Scholar

page 283 note † See Marshall's, Medical Topography of Ceylon, page 43.Google Scholar

page 283 note ‡ See Sonnini's, Travels in Greece, page 396.Google Scholar

page 283 note § See DrClarke's, JohnObservations on the Diseases of long Voyages, vol. i. page 128.Google Scholar

page 283 note ‖ See Sumatra, Marsden's, page 151.Google Scholar

page 283 note ¶ Leprosy is so frequent in those islands, that the Dutch were obliged, and we afterwards followed their example, to allot a small island for the exclusive use of the unhappy sufferers; it is called Lepers Island, and is near that of Saparoa, under the government of Amboyna. For the frequency of the disorder in those islands, the reader is referred to MrCrawfurd's, History of the Indian Archipelago, vol. i. page 34.Google Scholar

page 283 note ** See Maladies graves de la Zone Torride, page 290.Google Scholar

page 283 note †† Vide Aretæus, lib. ii. cap. xii.

page 283 note ‡‡ See Towne's, Treatise on West-India Diseases, page 190.Google Scholar

page 284 note * Such as Hillary, in his Diseases of Barbadoes, pages 325, 326Google Scholar; Sonnini in his Travels through Egypt; Bancroft, in his Natural History of Guiana, page 385, &c.Google Scholar; MM. Vidal and Johannis in their account of the disorder at Martigues. See a treatise on the supposed hereditary nature of diseases, by Adams, J., M.D. page 91.Google Scholar

page 284 note † Dr. Adams, in his work on Morbid Poisons, speaks particularly of a wasting of the genitals in Elephantiasis, as he found it at Madeira.

page 285 note * A knowledge of the exact period at which Aretæus lived appears to be one of the desiderata in medical history. Le Clerc, in his “Histoire de la Médecine,” says it is probable that he may have been contemporary with Galen; but this is merely conjecture: and of the two (Galen and Aretæus) so much is only correctly known, that they lived during the long interval betwixt Pliny and Paul Eginatus, and Aetius.—;See Hist, de la Médecine, pages 516, 517.Google Scholar

page 286 note * Vide Aretæus, lib.ii. cap. xiii.

page 286 note † See his Modern Practice of Physic, vol. ii. page 188.Google Scholar

page 286 note ‡ It would appear that Abubékér Mohamed Rhazes has, of all the Arab writers, given the best account of this disease: he lived and practised in Persia upwards of eight hundred years ago, and has made an exact distinction betwixt Elephas and the true Elephantiasis.—See Histoire de la Médecine, by Le Clerc, , page 771.Google Scholar

page 286 note § See Adams, on Morbid Poisons, page 289.Google Scholar

page 286 note ‖ See Lucretius, lib. v.

page 286 note ¶ See Pliny's Nat. Hist., lib. xxvi. cap. i.

page 288 note * Dr. Thomas Heberden, in his paper on this leprosy, says, I think erroneously, that the tubercles are attended with great heat and itching.—See Medical Transactions of the College of London, vol. i.Google Scholar

page 289 note * See Adams, on Morbid Poisons, page 273.Google Scholar

page 290 note * See Sonnini's, Travels through Egypt, page 559Google Scholar. See also Aretæus, by Moffat, , page 278Google Scholar; also Hillary's, Diseases of Barbadoes, page 322326.Google Scholar

page 290 note † See Aretæus, , page 283.Google Scholar

page 291 note * See Ward's, Hindoo Mythology, vol. ii. book 4. chap. ii. sect. 29.Google Scholar

page 292 note * Powder of the bark of the root of the Asclepias Gigantea.

page 293 note * It would appear by some late accounts, that the Lepra Arabum is very common in Iceland and Norway, in which first-mentioned country it is mentioned under the name of Skyrbjugur. See an excellent description of it, as it appears in those parts of the world, in a letter from Chevalier Bach to Dr. Trail, in Pinkertori's, Voyages and Travels, vol. i. page 713Google Scholar

page 293 note † See Edinb. Practice of Medicine, vol. iv. page 511.Google Scholar

page 293 note ‡ See Aretæus, , page 279.Google Scholar

page 294 note * See Alibert, on Diseases of the Skin, page 94.Google Scholar

page 294 note † See same work, page 90.

page 294 note † See his works, vol. i. page 556.Google Scholar

page 294 note § See Edinburgh Medical Journal, 10 1823.Google Scholar

page 294 note ‖ See Alibett, , page 88.Google Scholar

page 295 note * Dr. Quincy supposed the cause of leprosy to be some original malconformation, in the necessity of one secreting organ doing the office of another to which it is not naturally fitted.— See his Medico-Physical Essays, Essay VI., on Leprosy.

page 294 note † Amongst the great variety of vegetables taken as food by the Hindus, some of those picked up by the road side and eaten by the poor are of a deleterious nature, such as the Toombay keeray (Tam.) Phlomis Indica.

page 294 note ‡ He defines it as contagious,, and calls it a cancerous cácheria of the whole habit, arising from some fault in the liver or spleen, and consequent atrabilis or adust humour.—See his work, pages 3 and 4, second edition.

page 296 note * See his work, page 191. See also Hoffmann, part v. cap. v.

page 296 note † Vide Op. Galen, class vii. page 107, F.

page 296 note ‡ See his Diseases of Barbadoes.

page 297 note * See the work, pages 299, 300.

page 297 note † See his Synopsis of Materia Medica, page 41.

page 297 note ‡ For a particular account of the use of lizards in leprous affections, the reader is referred to the London Medical Review, vol. iii. pages 205, 206Google Scholar, where will be found observations by M. Demourande of Cadiz, and M. Delarche of Madras.

page 297 note § See his Medico-Physical Essays, Essay vi.

page 297 note ‖ See his Formulæ Medicamentorum concinnatæ.

page 297 note ¶ See his Study of Medicine, vol. ii. page 859.Google Scholar

page 298 note * See Note A.

page 298 note † See Note B.

page 298 note ‡ See Note C.

page 298 note § See Note D.

page 299 note * I perceive this cause of the disorder is noticed by Sir William Jones.—See his works, vol. i. page 556.Google Scholar

page 299 note † See Batemah's, Practical Synopsis of Diseases of the Skin, page 311, note.Google Scholar

page 300 note * The Area or Vásuca is the rosy variety; the Pratápasa or Alarca, is the white sort—H.T.C.

page 300 note † From the Sanscrit, Mandára—H.T.C.

page 300 note ‡ The reader will find farther notice of this plant in Springel's, Rei Herbariœ,” vol. i. pages 252, 253Google Scholar; also in “ Abu Hanifa abud Serap, ” cap. 50; also in “Alpinus' Egypt.

page 301 note * In the Hortus Bengalensis, published by Dr. Carey, from Dr. Roxburgh's MS., Akand is given as the Hindí name of asclepias gigantea.

page 301 note † See Hortus Malabaricus, part ii. page 55.

page 301 note ‡ See Medico Chirurgical Transactions, vol. x.Google Scholar See also DrJohnston's, James most valuable work on the influence of tropical climates, page 268.Google Scholar

page 301 note § See work, vol. ii. page 856.Google Scholar

page 302 note * Vide Celsus, lib. v. cap. xxviii.