_In the Faroe Isles._—These islands form the nearest land north of the Shetlands. The great cutaneous disease which formerly infected the inhabitants of Faroe had all the characters of tubercular leprosy. In proof of this, I may appeal to the description of the malady, given in the seventeenth century by Debes, who was Provost of the churches in these islands, and wrote an account, which was much esteemed at the time, of the country and its inhabitants. He observes, “As for the Leprosye itself, I would not omit, for the reader’s sake, to mention something of its nature. Physicians write that there are three sorts of Leprosies; namely, Tyria, from the serpent Tyrus. In this leprosy, the patient’s skin is soft, and sometimes falleth off in shells, and they have many spots and white wartes thereon. The second is called Alopecia, by reason the hairs fall off as those of a fox; he that is infected with this leprosy hath a red face, and his beard and eyebrows fall off. The third sort is called Elephantiasis, from the elephant, to whom they become like in their skin; the body and face of him that is infected with this disease is full of knobs. The Leprosie wherewith they are troubled in this country is usually Elephantiasis, for the face and limbs of almost all the infected are full of blue knobs, that break out sometimes as boyls, whereby they look very deformed in the face, being besides all hoarse, and speaking through their noses.”[204] _Iceland._—That the leprosy of Iceland (the next land north of the Faroe Isles) is of the nature of the _Elephantiasis Græcorum_, is a point which might be proved by any of the descriptions of it by Petersen, Troil, Henderson, and Holland. Dr. Holland’s account is more concise than the others. He states—