“In the examination and judgement of lepers, there must be much circumspection, because the injury is very great, whether we thus submit to confinement those that ought not to be confined, or allow lepers to mix with the people, seeing the disease is contagious and infectious.” Sir J. Simpson gives copious extracts from Guy’s _Chirurgia_, which has also been translated into modern French (1890). Guy describes fully the examination of a suspected person, giving in detail all possible symptoms. It may here be observed that Bartholomew _Anglicus_, his contemporary, enumerates among the causes predisposing to leprosy, dwelling and oft talking with leprous men, marriage and heredity, evil diet—e.g. rotten meat, measled hogs, flesh infected with poison, and the biting of a venomous worm: “in these manners and in many other the evil of _lepra_ breedeth in man’s body.” Guy advises the doctor to inquire if the person under examination comes of tainted stock, if he have conversed with lepers, etc. He must then consider and reconsider the equivocal and unequivocal signs of disease. After a searching investigation—not to be confined to one day—the patient must either be set free (_absolvendus_) with a certificate, or separated from the people and conducted to the lazar-house. About the time that John of Gaddesden was professor of medicine at Oxford (1307–1325), and was writing upon [p062] leprosy, “experienced physicians” were summoned to examine a provincial magnate. The mayor and bailiffs of royal Winchester had been over-zealous “under colour of the king’s late order to cause lepers who were amongst the healthy citizens to be expelled.” It was surely a bitter hour to Peter de Nutle, late mayor of the grand old city, when his successor and former colleagues hounded him out! But there was justice for one “falsely accused”; and subsequently an order of redress was sent, not without rebuke to the civic authorities for their malicious behaviour towards a fellow-citizen:— “as it appears, from the inspection and examination before our council by the council and by physicians expert in the knowledge of this disease, that the said Peter is whole and clean, and infected in no part of his body.” A few days later the sheriff of Hampshire was directed to make a proclamation to the same effect, so that Peter might dwell as he was wont unmolested.[52] The royal mandate of 1346 reiterated the stipulation that men of knowledge should inquire into suspected cases. It therefore seems unlikely that a London baker ejected in 1372 was merely suffering from an inveterate eczema, as has been suggested. Careless as were the popular notions of disease, medical diagnosis was becoming more exact; four kinds of leprosy were distinguished, of which “leonine” and “elephantine” were the worst.