[210] The disease seems to be noticed under the name of Skyrbjugr in some of the oldest Iceland records. (See Olassen’s _Islansk Urtagaard Bok_, p. 172; and Back, in Von Troil’s _Letters on Iceland_, p. 324.) Munch and Hunefeld suggest, with no great probability, that it might have been carried to the north by the expeditions which, during the ninth and tenth centuries, were made upon the Norman coast by Rolf and others. (See Hunefeld’s _Radesyge oder das Scandinavische Syphiloid_, p. 57.) [211] I have already referred to Bartholin in relation to its former prevalence in the Faroe Isles and Iceland. Writing in 1672, he states that in these parts leprosy “_fuisse olim familiarem_” (_de morbis Biblicis in Mis. Med._ p. 41). Jonas, Pastor of Hitterdale in Iceland, wrote in 1662 to the celebrated Sir Thomas Browne, “Nullus _elephantiasi_ vel abominabilior vel pestilentior hic existimatur, et tamen postremo hoc seculo pavendus se diffundit.” (Wilkin’s edition of Sir Thomas Browne’s Works, including his _Life and Correspondence_, vol. iv. p. 261.) [212] The date of admission to the church of one of the priors of the hospital. [213] _Synopsis of Cutaneous Diseases_, p. 419. [214] Murray’s Edition of the _Acts of the Parliament of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 18. In Shetland the kirk-sessions seem to have latterly taken upon them the legal powers conferred by the above Act upon the bishops and other ecclesiastical authorities, as shown by the following extract from the Session Records of the parish of Walls. “Kirk of Walls, December 6th, 1772.—This day the Session being informed that Margaret Abernethy, relick spouse of James Henry, had been, to all appearance, for a considerable time past, deeply tinted with the inveterate scurvy, commonly called the Leprosy in this place, and was now removed to Brabaster in the midst of a number of children, whose parents were in the greatest fear of their being infected with that disease by the said Margaret Abernethy, and that they and others had again and again called upon the Session to convene the said woman before them, in order to be sighted, and also to be set apart, if she should be found unclean, conform to former use and wont, in this and other parishes of the country: Therefore the Session did, and hereby do, appoint the officer to require said Margaret Abernethy to compear before them at this place, next Wednesday, in order to be examined and inspected, as above said.”—Extracted from the MS. Session Records of Walls.