Leprosy

Six “Non-natruals”: 1) ENVIRONMENT (bad air, exhaled by lepers or polluted by vapors; corrupt air emanating from corpses, etc.); (2) FOOD AND DRINK (varies among authors, but esp. no fish with milk in same meal, no meat of hare or donkeys, no bad food that upsets balance among humors, esp. black bile [Galen]; (3) REPLETION & EVACUATION/MENSTRUATION (need for balance e between fulness and emptiness to retain humoral balance, esp. re black bile; includes need for timely evacuation of corrupt portions. Concern with harmful excess overshadowed concern with deficiency [Avicenna]; grave threat of weakening of “expulsive faculty,” which  “retention of melancholic superfluities,” as in hemorrhoids; amenorrhea; (4) EXERTION AND REST: SEX: esp. in 13th and 14th c, less pervasive in medical writings; excessive sex depleted body’s precious fluids and overheated the blood; intercourse with leprous woman singled out as cause; (5) DIVISIONS AND DISTINCTIONS: “Leprosy in general was explained by the conjunction of a disproportionately cold and dry complexion with an excess of ‘unnatural’ black bile,” an excess due to “one of the four humors, which had become overheated and burned into ash.” The offending humor  the Salerians fourfold scheme of appearances that resembled the typical features of certain animals: when burned, yellow bile caused a leonine form; blood caused fox mange [hair loss owing to mite infestation]; black bile, causes elephantia, and phlegm, tyria, named for a snake (loc 1091-93). Bernard de Gordon of Montpellier “extended the humoral typology from etiology to a register of distinctive features. . . Each type was distinguished in definition, appearance, and course by the character of the responsible humor, which, in turn, was embodied in the eponymous animal ” (loc 1095-1096).