Note 2 — ORATION.
Reading edition
The contagiousness of Leprosy was held in universal belief up to the seventeenth century, when certain writers on the subject began to question the validity of a doctrine which had been handed down to them through successive ages, by all the early observers of the Jewish, Egyptian, Arabian, Grecian, and Hindoo countries, and the view then advanced has been confirmed by the report of the Committee recently appointed by the College of Physicians, who state that:—“The all but unanimous conviction of the most experienced observers in different parts of the world, is quite opposed to the belief that leprosy is contagious or communicable by proximity or contact.”
On the other hand we have to consider the testimony afforded us by the shrewd and intelligent teachers of ancient times. Thus, Aretæus believed it to be as contagious as the plague, and like it communicable by respiration; and Œtius, following Archigenes, thought that “the air became contaminated through the effluvia of the sores.” Avicenna believed leprosy to be contagious in the general sense of that term; Avenzoar by contact; Haly Abbas and Alsaharavius through the respiration; and Rogerius “per coitum.”
[These interesting facts are taken from an able article in the Lancet, February 9, 1867.]