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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 of the earth, have again and
again been changed. The pathologist has no such demonstrative data to
show that, in the course of time, the forms and species of morbid action
have undergone great mutations, like the forms and species of normal
life. But still we have strong grounds for believing that, in regard to
our own individual species alone, the diseases to which mankind are
subject have already undergone, in some respects, marked changes within
the historic era of medicine. Since the first medical observations that
are now extant on disease were made and recorded in Greece, various new
species of human maladies have, there can be little doubt, made their
original appearance. I need only allude to small-pox, measles, and
hooping-cough. Again, some diseases which prevailed formerly, seem to
have now entirely disappeared from among the human race—as, for
example, the Lycanthropia of the Sacred Writings, and of Oribasius,
Aetius, Marcellus, and various old medical authors.[3] Other maladies,
as that most anomalous affection, the English sweating-sickness of the
fifteenth century, have only once, and that for a very short period,
been permitted to commit their ravages upon mankind. And lastly, we have
still another and more extensive class, including maladies that have
changed their geographical stations to such an extent, as to have made
inroads upon whole districts and regions of the world, where they were
formerly unknown, leaving now untouched the localities which, in older
times, suffered most severely from their visitations.

Among this last tribe of diseases no one presents a more curious subject
of inquiry than the European leprosy, or tubercular elephantiasis of the
middle ages. This malady is now almost entirely, if not entirely,
unknown as a native endemic disease on any part of the Continent of
Europe; and yet from the tenth to the sixteenth century it prevailed in
nearly every district of it. Laws were enacted by Princes and Courts to
arrest its diffusion;—the Pope issued bulls with regard to the
ecclesiastical separation and rights of the infected;[4]—a particular
order of Knighthood was instituted to watch over the sick;—and leper
hospitals or lazar-houses were everywhere instituted to receive the
victims of the disease. The number of these houses has certainly been
often erroneously stated, in consequence, as far as I have been able to
trace it, of a strange mistake committed by Ducange, in quoting from
Matthew Paris a passage in which that historian contrasts the respective
possessions belonging in the thirteenth century to the Hospitalarii,
Knights Hospitallers, or Knights of St. John, as they were termed, and
the Knights Templars. The 19,000 lazar-houses in Christendom, as
interpreted by Ducange, mark in Matthew Paris’ work merely the number of
manors or commanderies of the Hospitalarii, and have no reference
whatever to leprosy or lazar-houses.[5] But still that an immense number
of leper-houses existed on the Continent at the period mentioned, is
abundantly shown in many of the historical documents of that age. Louis
VIII. promulgated a code of laws in 1226, for the regulation of the
French leper hospitals; and these hospitals were at that date computed
to amount, in the then limited kingdom of France, to not less than 2000
in number—(_deux mille leproseries_).[6] They afterwards, as is alleged
by Velley,[7] even increased in number, so much so that there was
scarcely a town or burgh in the country that was not provided with a
leper hospital. In his history of the reign of Philip II. Mezeray uses
the same language in regard to the prevalence of leprosy and leprous
patients in France during the twelfth century.[8] Muratori gives a
nearly similar account of the extent of the disease during the middle
ages in Italy;[9] and the inhabitants of the kingdoms of Northern
Europe, equally became its unfortunate victims.[10]

I have no desire, however, to enter at present into the extensive
history of the leprosy of the middle ages, as seen in the different
quarters of Europe. My object is a much more limited and a much more
humble one. I wish only to adduce various evidence to show that the
disease extended to this the most western verge of Europe, and at one
time prevailed to a considerable extent in our own kingdom of Scotland,
which, at the period alluded to, was one of the most remote and
thinly-populated principalities in Christendom. I shall have frequent
occasion, at the same time, to illustrate my remarks by references to
the disease as it existed contemporaneously in England.[11]

In following out the object adverted to, I shall commence by an
enumeration of such leper hospitals as I have detected any notices of in
old Scottish records. The knowledge of the mere existence of most of
these hospitals has been obtained more by the accidental preservation of
charters of casual grants to them than by any historical or traditional
notice of the institutions themselves. The information, therefore, which
I have to offer in regard to most of them is exceedingly slight. The
following meagre notes regarding the two first Lazar or Leper-houses,
Spitals, Spetels, or Spitles,[12] which I shall mention, show the truth
of this remark.


SCOTTISH LEPER HOSPITALS.

_Aldcambus, Berwickshire._—A Leper Hospital existed at Aldcambus, in
the parish of Cockburnspath, Berwickshire, as far back as the reign of
William the Lion.

In the Chartulary of the Priory of Coldingham is preserved a charter by
which that monarch confirms a grant of half a carrucate of land to this
hospital. I shall give a transcript of the charter, which has hitherto
remained unpublished. I do so that it may serve as a fair specimen of
the various similar charter documents to which I shall have occasion to
allude in the course of the following remarks. It is entitled
“Confirmatio donationis Hospitali de Aldcambus facta:”—“Willelmus Dei
gratia Rex Scottorum omnibus probis hominibus totius terre sue Clericis
et laicis salutem. Sciant presentes et futuri me concessisse, et hac
cartâ meâ confirmasse donationem illam, quam David de Quicheswde fecit
Hospitali de Aldcambus et Leprosis ibi manentibus, de illa dimidia
carucata terræ in Aldcambus quam Radulfus Pelliparius tenuit: tenendam
in liberam et puram et perpetuam eleemosinam, cum omnibus libertatibus
et aisiamentis ad predictam terram juste pertinentibus, ita liberé et
quieté sicut carta predicti Davidis testatur: Salvo servicio meo.
Testibus Willelmo de Bosch. Cancellario meo, Waltero Cuming, Davide de
Hastings. Appud Jeddewrith, xvi. die Maij.”[13]

_Aldnestun in Lauderdale._—At Aldneston another leper-house existed.
It was under the control of the Abbey of Melrose. In the Melrose
Chartulary there is preserved a charter headed “Carta Leprosorum de
Moricestun.” In this charter, Walter Fitzallan, Steward of Scotland,
granted to this hospital of Auldnestun and its inmates (Hospitali de
Auldnestun et infirmis fratribus ibidem residentibus), a carrucate and a
half of land in the village of Auldnestun; another carrucate and a half,
which Dame Emma of Ednaham held (tenuit per suas rectas divisas), with
the common pasturage and easement (asiamento) of the forests of
Birkenside and Ligarrdewude (Legerwood), and a right to grind at his
mill without paying multure.[14]

_Kingcase, Ayrshire._—At Kilcais or Kingcase, on a bleak muir in the
parish of Prestwick, and about two miles from the town of Ayr, stood,
for several centuries, an hospital for Lepers. The general tradition of
the surrounding country avers that this hospital was founded by King
Robert the Bruce. In the article on Ayr, recently published by the Rev.
Dr. Auld and Mr. Cuthill, in the New Statistical Account of
Scotland,[15] the foundation charter of Robert Bruce is said to have
been purchased by the Magistrates of that town in 1786. I am obligingly
assured, however, by Mr. Murdoch of Ayr, that no such document is known
to exist among the archives of that town. It is probable that the
hospital existed before the time of Bruce. In a charter to the monastery
of Dalmulin, contained in the Chartulary of Paisley Abbey,[16] and of
the date of the reign of William I. of Scotland, among other lands and
localities in Kyle and the immediate neighbourhood of Kingcase, the term
Spetel-Crag occurs. Now the term Spetel was a prefix applied, both in
Scotland and England, to all hospital lands and possessions, and to
these alone; and history records no other hospital whatever in Kyle,
from which this appellation of Spetel Craigs could be derived. But
whether Bruce was the original founder, or, what is more probable, a
liberal endower of the hospital, we know this at least of the history of
the Kingcase Leper Hospital, that it possessed at one time pretty
extensive lands and property in the parish of Dundonald, and in Kyle
Stewart.[17]

These, like many other hospital grants, came after a time to be
perverted from their original objects of charity, and applied to the
aggrandisement of particular individuals. Thus the family of Wallace of
Newton obtained from James II. a feu-charter of the Kingcase estate of
Spittalshiels, for the annual payment of eight merks Scots, and sixteen
thrave of straw. In reference to this, the land of Spittalshiels has yet
(observes Sir Walter Scott, in a note to his _Lord of the Isles_[18]) to
give, if required, a quantity of straw for the lepers’ beds of Kingcase,
and so much to thatch their houses. Along with Spittalshiels the
Wallaces acquired the office of Hereditary Keeper or Governor of the
Hospital itself, and of the other lands pertaining to it. In the family
of the Wallaces of Craigy this right of patronage and presentation to
Kingcase was long held, with all the remaining endowments of the
hospital. These privileges were exposed at a judicial sale of the estate
of Craigy, and purchased, 1784, by the burgh of Ayr, for £300. The
magistrates, from this right, exact feu-duties from the lands formerly
belonging to Kingcase, to the annual extent of sixty-four bolls oatmeal,
and eight merks Scots money. This revenue has been made over to the
poor’s house of Ayr. In virtue of it the magistrates have the privilege
of presenting a certain number of inmates to this latter
institution.[19]

No records remain as to the original extent of the Kilcais Hospital. The
number of lepers supported was, during the latter years of the
institution, limited to eight. Before the hospital revenues and lands
were despoiled the number might have been greater. The only remnants of
the buildings which are now left consist of the massive side-wall of a
house 36 feet long and 17 wide. This is generally alleged to be the
ruins of the chapel merely of the hospital; and under this view it is
certainly calculated to give us a high opinion of the ancient extent and
endowments of the institution. Sir Robert Gordon, in a description of
Kyle, published in 1654, in Bleau’s _Atlas_, states that the persons
admitted to the charity were then lodged in huts (_tuguria_) in the
vicinity of the chapel.[20]

_Glasgow._—In 1350, in the reign of David II., the Lady of Lochow,
daughter of Robert Duke of Albany, erected a leper hospital at the
Gorbals of Glasgow, near the old Bridge.[21] She endowed this hospital
with some lands and houses in the city. The magistrates of Glasgow seem
to have exercised the privilege both of searching for lepers among the
inhabitants, and of consigning them to this hospital. From the Burgh
Records, presented some time ago by Mr. Smith to the Maitland Club, it
appears that in 1573 the magistrates ordained four persons, named as
lepers, “to be viseit (inspected), and gif they be fund so, to be
secludit of the town to the Hospital at the Brigend.”[22] A similar
edict was issued in regard to two other individuals in 1575,[23] and in
1581 eight more seem to have been dealt with in the same manner.[24] The
Bishops of Glasgow appear also to have had a right to present patients
to the hospital. In 1464, Andrew Muirhead, who then held the bishoprick,
availed himself of the privilege by presenting one patient.

On the 9th August 1589, a report was given in to the magistrates of
Glasgow, stating that six lepers were at that time in the house.[25] As
late as 1664, the ground-rents of this hospital were uplifted by the
water