James Young Simpson - Archæological Essays, Vol. 2

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

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 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;

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.

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, 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 cart me confirmasse donationem illam, quam David de Quicheswde fecit Hospitali de Aldcambus et Leprosis ibi manentibus, de illa dimidia carucata terr 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 liber et quiet sicut carta predicti Davidis testatur: Salvo servicio meo. Testibus Willelmo de Bosch. Cancellario meo, Waltero Cuming, Davide de Hastings. Appud Jeddewrith, xvi. die Maij.

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.