No Burgh was complete without a Hospital--no royal Burgh without a Castle. Leprosy was the disease of the age--a never-ceasing plague, entailed by unwholesome food, a want of vegetables, and the salted meat and fish, which formed invariably the winter diet, not a little aided by uncleanliness. Every one struck with leprosy within the walls was to be removed at once to the _Spittal_; and if he had nothing of his own, a collection of twenty shillings--a considerable sum for the time--was to be raised for his support. If the pauper was not cured by the time the money was spent, he was probably dismissed as incurable, and classed amongst the confirmed lepers, who were forbidden to enter any town, but were allowed to sit at the gate and beg. By the Law of Scotland it was allowable to give “Herbary” to a stranger for one night without question, but if he stayed beyond that period the host was answerable for the guest, and bound to produce him before the proper officer. Even this relic of the unstinted hospitality of early times was dispensed with in the case of this dreaded disease; and he who sheltered a leper within the walls was liable to the heaviest fine inflicted, “the full forfeiture.” Similar arrangements were once in force in every burgh; as in London, for instance, where the _Spittal Fields_ were the open meadows around the Hospital for Lepers, who were allowed to ask for alms at the _Cripples Gate_, a spot which the charitable may have sought out, but which a larger class must, most assuredly, have shunned.[330]