There is an interesting document extant concerning a certain woman who lived at Brentwood in 1468. She was indicted by a Chancery warrant, but acquitted on the [p063] authority of a medical certificate of health. The neighbours of Johanna Nightingale petitioned against her, complaining that she habitually mixed with them and refused to retire to a solitary place, although “infected by the foul contact of leprosy.” A writ was therefore issued by Edward IV commanding a legal inquiry. Finally, Johanna appeared before a medical jury in the presence of the Chancellor. They examined her person, touched and handled her, made mature and diligent investigation, going through over forty distinctive signs of disease. She was at length pronounced “utterly free and untainted,” and the royal physicians were prepared to demonstrate this in Chancery “by scientific process.”[53] 6. TREATMENT OF THE BODY Alleviation was sometimes sought in medicinal waters. Here and there the site of a hospital seems to have been selected on account of its proximity to a healing spring, e.g. Harbledown, Burton Lazars, Peterborough, Newark, and Nantwich. In various places there are springs known as the Lepers’ Well, frequented by sufferers of bygone days. Tradition ascribes to bathing some actual cures of “leprosy.” Bladud the Briton, a prehistoric prince, was driven from home because he was a leper. At length he discovered the hot springs of Bath, where instinct had already taught diseased swine to wallow: Bladud, too, washed and was clean. The virtue of the mineral waters, well known to the Romans, was also appreciated by the Saxons; possibly the baths were frequented by lepers [p064] from early days, for there was long distributed in Bath “an ancient alms to the poor and leprous of the foundation of Athelstan, Edgar and Ethelred.” A small bath was afterwards set apart for their use, to which the infected flocked. Leland notes that the place was “much frequentid of People diseasid with Lepre, Pokkes, Scabbes, and great Aches,” who found relief. A story similar to that of Bladud, but of later date, comes from the eastern counties: a certain man, sorely afflicted with leprosy, was healed by a spring in Beccles, near which in gratitude he built a hospital. [Illustration: 8. ELIAS, LEPER MONK]