DBook II ELEPHANTIASIS 169

for instance Ionthi,'? and affections of that sort. The conta—
gion acts slowly, because it consists of thick humor. Why it
leaves fomes, whereas French Sickness does not, though the
latter is endowed with greater viscosity, is hard to decide. I
'ought to add that in French Sickness the germs, owing to their
viscosity and coldness, coagulate at once, and either do not
adhere to fomes, or, when they do adhere, do not infect another
person, since they are cold and coagulated, or only do so when
they have become very warm.  Hence it has been observed that
certain persons have caught the infection from the linen sheets
which had been slept in by persons suffering from French Sick—
ness with the foulest kind of ulcers. However that contagion
does not in general leave fomes behind. But the germs of
elephantia are much hotter, because they are constituted in a&
certain adustion; hence they do not coagulate, but have just
viscosity enough to be able to adhere to fomes.

Elephantiasis sometimes developes of itself in certain indi—
viduals, and above all in persons whose blood is melancholic,
abundant and oily, and who have thick skins. Sometimes it
is contraected from another person, and in these cases the blood
is not necessarily per se in an unhealthy state, but is contami—
nated by the germs of the contagion; for these corrupt the thick,
dry part of the blood, inasmuch as they are analogous with it.
"This then is the character of the affection called elephantiasis,
which is commonly cealled leprosy.