A History of Epidemics in Britain, Volume 1 (of 2): From A.D. 664 to the Extinction of PlagueCreighton, Charles
History
A History of Epidemics in Britain, Volume 1 (of 2): From A.D. 664 to the Extinction of Plague
Creighton, Charles
Epidemics -- Great Britain -- History
Most of the leper-spitals of Scotland would appear to have been of the
poorest kind, unendowed and unprovided with priests. The richest
foundation for lepers in Scotland was at Kingcase, near Prestwick in
Ayrshire, endowed with lands and consisting of a hospital of eight beds.
One or more leper-hospitals were built by the rich abbeys on the Tweed (at
Aldcambus in Berwickshire and probably at another place). Another great
ecclesiastical centre in Scotland, Elgin, had a leper-house at Rothfan,
with accommodation for seven lepers, a chaplain, and a servant. After
these, the Scots leper-houses may be taken to have been mere refuges, in
which the lepers supported themselves by begging. One such secular
hospital was in the Gorbals of Glasgow, founded in 1350. Liberton, near
Edinburgh, is supposed to mean Leper-town, and to have been a resort of
the sick on account of its medicinal spring. The hospital at Greenside,
then outside Edinburgh, was built in 1589. There was a leper-spital
outside the Gallow-gate of Aberdeen, on a road which still bears the name
of the Spital. Similar shelters may be inferred to have existed at Perth,
Stirling, Linlithgow and other places. James IV., in his journeys, used to
distribute small sums to the sick folk in the “grandgore” (syphilis), to
the poor folk, and to the lipper-folk, “at the town end[192].”
There were some leper-hospitals in Ireland, but it is not easy to
distinguish them in every case from general hospitals for the sick poor.
Thus the hospital built by the monks of Innisfallen in 869 is merely
called _nosocomium_, although it is usually reckoned an early foundation
for lepers in Ireland. A hospital at Waterford was “confirmed to the poor”
by the Benedictines in 1185. St Stephen’s in Dublin (1344) is specially
named as the residence of the “poor lepers of the city” in a deed of gift
about 1360-70; a locality of the city called Leper-hill was perhaps the
site of another refuge. Lepers also may have been the occupants of the
hospitals at Kilbrixy in Westmeath (St Bridget’s), of St Mary Magdalene’s
at Wexford (previous to 1408), of the house at “Hospital,” Lismore (1467),
at Downpatrick, at Kilclief in county Down, at Cloyne, and of one or more
of four old hospitals in or near Cork. The hospital at Galway, built “for
the poor of the town” about 1543, was not a leper-house, nor is there
reason to take the old hospital at Dungarvan as a foundation specially for
lepers[193].
The Prejudice against Lepers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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