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  ARCHÆOLOGICAL ESSAYS

  BY THE LATE

  SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON, BART.

  M.D., D.C.L.

  ONE OF HER MAJESTY’S PHYSICIANS FOR SCOTLAND, AND PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE
  AND MIDWIFERY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH

  EDITED BY

  JOHN STUART, LL.D.

  SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES OF SCOTLAND

  VOL. II.

  EDINBURGH
  EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS

  PUBLISHERS TO THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES

  MDCCCLXXII

  _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_.



  CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.
                                                              PAGE

  I. ON LEPROSY AND LEPER HOSPITALS IN SCOTLAND AND
  ENGLAND                                                        1

  Communication read before the Medico-Chirurgical
  Society of Edinburgh, 3d March 1841, and printed
  in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal
  (vol. lvi. p. 301; vol. lvii. p. 121).

  [Additional Notes by Joseph Robertson, LL.D.]

  II. NOTES ON SOME ANCIENT GREEK MEDICAL VASES FOR
  CONTAINING LYKION; AND ON THE MODERN USE OF THE
  SAME DRUG IN INDIA                                           185

  Read to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 26th
  February 1852. Proc. vol. i. p. 47.

  Reprinted separately in 1856, and “Inscribed to Dr.
  Sichel of Paris.” Edinburgh: Sutherland and Knox.

  III. WAS THE ROMAN ARMY PROVIDED WITH MEDICAL
  OFFICERS?                                                    197

  Printed as a Pamphlet, at Edinburgh, 1856 (Sutherland
  and Knox), and “Inscribed to James Pillans, Esq.,
  F.R.S.E., Professor of Humanity in the University
  of Edinburgh, etc. etc., as a Small Tribute of sincere
  Esteem from an Old and Attached Pupil.”

  _With One Plate._

  IV. NOTICES OF ANCIENT ROMAN MEDICINE-STAMPS, ETC.,
  FOUND IN GREAT BRITAIN                                       229

  Communicated to the Monthly Journal of Medical
  Science, January, March, and April 1851.

  _With Four Plates._

  V. ANTIQUARIAN NOTICES OF SYPHILIS IN SCOTLAND               301

  Communicated to the Epidemiological Society of London,
  1862. Trans. vol. i. part ii.

  Reprinted privately at Edinburgh (Edmonston and
  Douglas), “Inscribed to the most learned Physician
  of Modern Times, James Copland, Esq., M.D.,
  Author of the Dictionary of Practical Medicine.”




ON LEPROSY AND LEPER HOSPITALS

IN SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND.[1]




PART I.


Few subjects in pathology are more curious, and at the same time more
obscure, than the changes which, in the course of ages, have taken place
in the diseases incident either to the human race at large, or to
particular divisions and communities of it.

A great proportion of the maladies to which mankind are liable have, it
is true, remained entirely unaltered in their character and consequences
from the earliest periods of medical history down to the present day.
Synocha, Gout, and Epilepsy, for instance, show the same symptoms and
course now, as the writings of Hippocrates describe them to have
presented to him upwards of two thousand years ago. The _generatio de
novo_ of a really new species of disease “is (says Dr. Mason Good[2])
perhaps as much a phenomenon as a really new species of plant or of
animal.” Dr. Good’s remark is probably too sweeping in its principle;
for, if necessary, it might be easy to show that, if the particular
diseases of particular animal species are liable to alteration at all,
they must necessarily alter more frequently than those animal species
themselves. In pursuing such an inquiry, the pathologist labours under
comparative disadvantages. The physiologist can, by the aid of
geological research, prove that the individual species of plants and
animals inhabiting this and other regions