At the outset it is necessary to state that inmates of lazar-houses were not all true lepers. Persons termed _leprosi_, _infirmi_, _elefantuosi_, _languidi_, _frères malades_, _meselles_, do not necessarily signify lepers in a strict sense. Gervase of Canterbury, writing about 1200, speaks of St. Oswald’s, Worcester, as intended for “_Infirmi, item leprosi_”; and these words are used synonymously in Pipe Rolls, charters, seals, etc. “Leprosy” was an elastic term as commonly used. In the statutes of one hospital, [p049] the patriarch Job was claimed as a fellow-sufferer—“who was so smitten with the leprosy, that from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head there was no soundness in him.” A _lazar_ was one “full of sores,” and any person having an inveterate and loathsome skin-eruption might be considered infected. Disfiguring and malignant disorders were common. Victims of _scrofula_, _lepra_, _lupus_, _tuberculosis_, _erysipelas_ (or “St. Anthony’s fire”) and persons who had contracted disease as the baneful result of a life stained with sin, would sometimes take advantage of the provision made for lepers, for in extremity of destitution this questionable benefit was not to be despised. In foreign lands to-day, some are found not unwilling to join the infected for the sake of food and shelter; we are told, for example, that the Hawaiian Government provides so well for lepers that a difficulty arises in preventing healthy people from taking up their abode in the hospitals. On the other hand, it often happens that those who are actually leprous refuse to join a segregation-camp. No one, however, can deny that leprosy was once exceedingly prevalent, and after weighing all that might be said to the contrary, Sir J. Y. Simpson and Dr. George Newman were convinced that the disease existent in England was for the most part true leprosy (_elephantiasis Græcorum_). 1. PIONEERS OF CHARITY One practical outcome of the religious revival of the twelfth century was a movement of charity towards the outcast. The Lazarus whom Jesus loved became linked in pious minds with that [p050] _Lazarus ulceribus plenus_ neglected by men, but now “in Abraham’s bosom,” and the thought took a firm hold of the heart and imagination. Abandoned by relatives, loathed by neighbours, the famished leper was now literally fed with crumbs of comfort from the rich man’s table.