Hippocrates makes only casual mention of these diseases, and has nowhere marked their distinguishing characters. In one place he calls leprosy a blemish rather than a disease; and in another he remarks that some varieties of it itch before rain. He speaks of vinegar, and of lime and water as remedies for it. It is proper to apprize the reader that the two works quoted above from the Hippocratic Collection are, most probably, not genuine. Galen also is very deficient on the subject of lepra, having nowhere given a complete description of it, although he notices it incidentally in many parts of his works. In one place he calls elephas, leuce, and alphos cognate affections. Alphos, he says, is much more superficial than leuce. In another, he attributes these complaints to the melancholic humour which becomes fixed in the skin. In the ‘Isagogue,’ which, however, seems not to be a genuine work of his, it is said that lepra is an affection of the skin, which becomes whiter and rougher than natural, the roughness resembling that from prominent psydracia. Psora is said to partake more of the nature of ulceration. Both are represented as arising from a saltish phlegm, and as being cured by phlegmagogues, and ointments rubbed into the skin. It is also stated that leuce is distinguished from lepra by there being no roughness of the skin in the former disease. In another place he mentions psora as a disease most inveterate to cure. (Facult. Natur. i, 13.) Oribasius thus distinguishes leuce, alphos, melas, lepra, and psora from one another. Leuce is occasioned by a pituitous and viscid blood, which, in process of time, renders the colour white. Alphos arises in like manner, but the superficial skin only is affected, and not the whole flesh. When a pituitous humour is the cause of the complaint, it puts on the appearance of alphos, and when the melancholic, of melas. Lepra affects mostly the deep-seated parts, and psora the superficial. For all these complaints he recommends a mixture of lime and water and some other such things. In the ‘Euporista,’ generally ascribed to Dioscorides, there is given a long list of medicinal articles for lepra, such as the flour of darnel with sulphur, hellebore with vinegar, verdigris, cantharides, &c.