The Diseases of the Bible (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1891. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... chapter I. leprosy. section I.--Nomenclature of the Disease. since the application of the termZ/rarj/to designate the disease described in Lev. xiii. and xiv., the greatest confusion has prevailed in the use of the word, and the utmost difference of opinion as to what it implies. This appears to have arisen mainly from the same Latin word, lepra, having been used in at least two distinct senses. In the one case it denotes a mere skin disease, and in the other a serious constitutional malady, having indeed important cutaneous manifestations, but implicating the whole organism, and ending invariably, it is believed, in death. When used originally to denote simply a disease of the skin, lepra was synonymous with the Greek Ae'irpa, the radical meaning of which is rough or scaly (Aeiroy, a husk or scale). No medical author, it is believed, either before or after the time of St. Luke ever used the Greek word Ae'irpa to denote anything but some rough scaly cutaneous disease.1 The old Greek version of the Pentateuch translates the Hebrew tsara'ath njhij by Aettjoa, indicating thereby that the translators considered the Levitical disease (called in the Authorised Version leprosy) to be the skin disease known by that 1 See on this whole subject Dr. Greenhill in the Bible Educator, vol. iv. p. 76 et seq., 1876. name in Greek medicine. In modern times also, the same word has been applied to one of the forms of scaly skin disease that was called lepra vulgaris. This, however, has been abandoned; what was at one time so called being now classed as a variety of psoriasis, an ancient and very common cutaneous disease. It may indeed be said to be the most universal of all skin diseases, being found in every climate and among all races, though most common in equatorial latitudes ...