Bernhard Gordon was, at the commencement of the fourteenth century, one of the first, if not the first Professor of Medicine in the newly-established school of Montpellier. “He has left us,” says Dr. Freind,[174] “a large volume called _Lilium Medicinae_ (for in that affected age everything writ in Physick, was either a Lily or a Rose), a book mightily celebrated in those times.” This volume is generally stated to have been written about the year 1305[175] or 1309.[176] From the very long chapter which is devoted in this work to the consideration of leprosy, I shall translate the account which the author gives of his threefold stages or classes of symptoms of the disease—viz. the occult, the infallible, and the last or terminating signs. 1. “The occult premonitory signs (_signa occulta in principio_) of leprosy are (he states) a reddish colour of the face, verging to duskiness; the expiration begins to be changed; the voice grows raucous, the hairs become thinned and weaker, and the perspiration and breath incline to fœtidity; the mind is melancholic with frightful dreams and nightmare; in some cases scabs, pustules, and eruptions, break out over the whole body; the disposition of the body begins to become loathsome, but still, while the form and figure (_forma et figura_) are not corrupted, the patient is not to be adjudged for separation, but is to be most strictly watched (_nondum est judicandus ad separationem, sed est fortissime comminandus_.) 2. “The infallible signs (_signa infallibilia_) are enlargement of the eyebrows, with loss of their hair; rotundity of the eyes; swelling of the nostrils externally, and contraction of them within; voice nasal; colour of the face glossy (_lucidus_), verging to a darkish hue; aspect of the face terrible, with a fixed look, and with acumination and contraction of the pulps of the ears. And there are many other signs, as pustules and excrescences, atrophy of the muscles, and particularly of those between the thumb and forefinger; insensibility of the extremities; fissures and infections of the skin; the blood, when drawn and washed, containing black, earthy, rough, sandy matters, and other marks which authors prominently mention, but for me, those suffice which are to be found in the face. The above are those evident and manifest signs, which, when they do appear, the patient ought to be separated from the people (_quibus apparentibus patiens est a populo sequestrandus_), or, in other words, secluded in a leper-house. 3. “The signs of the last stage, and breaking-up (_naufragium_) of the disease are, corrosion and falling-in of the cartilage forming the septum of the nose; fissure and division (_scissura_) of the feet and hands; enlargement of the lips, and a disposition to glandular swelling; dyspnœa and difficulty of breathing; the voice hoarse and barking; the aspect of the face frightful, and of a dark colour; and the pulse small and imperceptible.”[177]