Excerpt from Prize Essays on LeprosyIt was in the eleventh century that the first hospitals and pest houses were built; but we must not necessarily assume that the existence and building of leper houses and like institutions implied a new or even an increasing disease. The leper-house period - roughly from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries inclusive - may have been due to the awakening of. Humanitarian ideas, or to some rough medical or ecclesiastical intention of thereby preventing the spread of the disease. In all probability leprosy was at its zenith not later than the twelfth century, even though many leper-houses date after that. Whether that be the exact period of its zenith, it seems quite clear that leprosy was a pre-norman disease in the British Islands.Some have said the returning Crusaders brought leprosy back to England. This, now, is surely a discarded view.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books.

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