Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 2.djvu/441

Rh "This disease also began, for the most part, in the face, and namely it took the nose, where it put forth a little specke, or pimple, no bigger than a small lentill; but soone after, as it spread farther, and ran over the whole bodie, a man should perceive the skin to be painted and spotted with divers and sundrie colours, and the same uneven, bearing out higher in one place than another, thicke here but thin there, and hard every where; rough also, like as if a scurfe or scab over-ran it, untill, in the end, it would grow to be blackish, bearing downe the flesh flat to the bones, whiles the fingers of the hands, and toes of the feet, were puffed up and swelled againe. A peculiar malady is this, and natural to the Ægyptians; but looke when any of their kings fell into it, woe worth the subjects and poore people, for there were the tubs and bathing vessels wherein they sate in the baine filled with men's blood for their cure." P. H. T. lib. xxvi. c. 2.

The leprosy was of different kinds, and that peculiar to the Ægyptians might, perhaps, wear a red appearance.