Gilbert has a chapter headed “De Lepra.” In this chapter he describes very minutely the four usual modifications of lepra (the Elephantia, Leonina, Tyria, and Alopecia), varieties which, he himself observes, are rarely found pure and simple, but generally mixed together (_compositas_).[185] To quote in proof of this his long and very detailed account of the disease would occupy much space and only lead to repetition. That the description, however, which Gilbert has drawn of the leprosy of the middle ages is one of the most just and accurate penned during these times, has been often and freely admitted by Sauvages, Sprengel, and other competent judges. Further, that the lepra as described by Gilbert, and as understood by him and his contemporaries in England, meant the elephantiasis of the Greeks, is evident (without going into particulars) from the simple fact, that the sagacious Sauvages refers to and quotes this chapter of Gilbert’s on lepra as one of the best descriptions extant of Greek elephantiasis.[186] In an official report given in to the Royal Society of Medicine of Paris in 1782, upon the Greek elephantiasis, the reporters, MM. Chamseru and Coquereau, specially allude to Gilbert’s description as the most clear exposition of it to which they could refer.[187] Again, in an analysis of the works of this early English author, the learned Professor Sprengel observes, “Gilbert sometimes relates, though very rarely, observations which are proper to himself, and which deserve to be quoted. In this number I include particularly those concerning leprosy. We may almost look upon them as the first exact description which has been given of that malady by the Christian physicians of the west. The spots which foretell it, and the signs of its first invasion, are at least described by him in a manner agreeable to nature,” etc.[188]