But here occurs a considerable difficulty. For Moses says, “If in the leprosy there be observed a white tumour in the skin, and it have turned the hair white in it, and there be quick flesh within the tumour; it is an old leprosy in the skin of his flesh. But if the leprosy spread broad in the skin, and cover the whole skin of the diseased from his head even to his feet, the person shall be pronounced[49] clean.” But the difficulty contained in this passage will vanish, if we suppose, as it manifestly appears to me, that it points out two different species of the disease; the one in which the eroded skin was ulcerated, so that the quick flesh appeared underneath; the other, which spread on the surface of the skin only in the form of rough scales. And from this difference it happened, that the former species was, and the latter was not, contagious. For these scales, being dry and light like bran, do not penetrate into the skin; whereas the purulent matter issuing from the ulcers infects the surface of the body. But concerning the differences of cuticular diseases, I heartily recommend to the reader’s perusal, what Johannes Manardus, equally valuable for his medical knowledge and the purity of his Latin, has written upon the subject.[50] [49] _Levit. Chap. xiii. v. 10 &c._ [50] _Epist. Medicinal. Lib. vii. Epist. ii._ There is no time, in which this disease was not known; but it was always more severe in Syria and Egypt, as they are hotter countries, than in Greece and other parts of Europe; and it is even at this day frequent in those regions. For I have been assured by travellers, that there are two hospitals for the leprous alone in Damascus. And there is a fountain at Edessa, in which great numbers of people affected with this cuticular foulness wash daily, as was the ancient custom.