In these early times the very words employed to designate the disease show its extent and severity. Somner, Lye, and Bosworth, in their several Dictionaries of the old Anglo-Saxon language, all quote the remarkable expression, “_seo mycle adl_,” “the mickle ail” or great disease, as signifying “elephantiasis” or “leprosie;” and it is worthy of observation, in reference to the same point, that the delightful old French chronicler, Sir John Froissart, who visited Scotland in the time of Robert II., applies, as we shall afterwards see, the analogous term of “la grosse maladie” to one noted case of leprosy in this country. Some further idea may be formed of the frequency of the disease, at least in the border counties of Scotland, when I state that, before the year 1200, there existed various hospitals for the exclusive reception of lepers in the immediately adjoining English counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, and Durham. Three alone of these hospitals contained as many as ninety-one lepers in all—viz. the hospital of Sherburne, near Durham,[47] contained sixty-five; St. Nicholas, Carlisle,[48] contained thirteen; and Bolton, in Northumberland, founded, as its charter[49] bears, by Robert de Roos, “pro salute animae meae et omnium antecessorum et successorum meorum,” was endowed for other thirteen. I may here take the opportunity of stating that the labours of different English antiquaries, and more particularly the investigations of Leland, Dugdale, and Tanner, into the Monastic History of England, tend to show that at an early period many leper-houses were scattered over England and Wales. In searching through the works of these authors, and more particularly through the late splendid edition of the _Monasticon Anglicanum_, with the numerous additions of Caley, Ellis, and Bandinel, I have found references to between eighty and ninety English lazar-houses.[50] In the second and third volumes of the _Monasticon Anglicanum_ (1st edition) above ninety[51] charters or other notices of English hospitals are published, and of these twenty-one at least were hospitals for the reception of lepers. Bloomefield[52] mentions eighteen leper-houses in Norfolk alone; and Taylor,[53] in his _Index Monasticus_, enumerates twenty in that single county. Six of these were placed in Norwich or its immediate vicinity, and five at Lynne Regis. OBJECTS, CHARACTER, AND GOVERNMENT OF THE LEPER HOSPITALS. The leper hospitals, both in Scotland and elsewhere, were intended merely as receptacles to seclude the infected, not as houses in which a cure of them was to be attempted. They were charitable and hygienic rather than medical institutions.