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OF

UNIVERSAL KNOWLEDGE.

BEING

A REPRINT ENTIRE OF THE LAST (1879) EDINBURGH AND LONDON EDITION
OF CHAMBERS'S ENCYCLOPÆDIA;

A Dictionary of Universal Knowledge for the People.

WITH VERY LARGE ADDITIONS UPON TOPICS OF SPECIAL
INTEREST TO AMERICAN READERS.

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BiLab 9108.79

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1898 June 23

HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY

TRANSFERRED FROM

BOTANICAL MUSEUM LIBRARY

FEB. 26, 1934

W

LIBRARY OF

UNIVERSAL KNOWLEDGE.

LEPI'SMA, a genus of wingless insects, of the order Thysanura. The best known species is L. saccharina, sometimes called the Sugar Louse, because it is often found about old sugar barrels. It is said to have been introduced into Britain from America. All the species of L. and of the family Lepismida inhabit moist places, and feed on decaying vegetable substances. They have a flattened, spindleshaped body, terminating in three long bristles. They run swiftly. They are mostly covered with silvery scales, which are much used as test objects for the microscope.

LE PORIDÆ. See HARE.

LEPRA is a Greek term which is now generally employed by medical writers to desiguate a scaly affection of the skin. These scales occur in circular patches of a grayish color, with a red, slightly elevated margin. If the scales fall off or are removed, the surface of the skin is red and shining, and new scales rapidly form. The patches vary in size, being often about an inch in diameter, and sometimes much larger. Lepra most commonly occurs on the limbs, and especially on those parts where the bones are most thinly covered. Its duration is uncertain, and if not interrupted by treatment, it will frequently continue for years, without materially affecting the general health. It is not contagious. The local application of tar ointment, or the iodide of sulphur ointinent, will sometimes remove it. If it does not yield to this treatment, small doses of Fowler's Arsenical Solution (three to five minims) may be prescribed, twice or thrice a day, either in water or in the decoction of dulcamara, which is supposed to be specially beneficial in chronic skin diseases.

LEPROSY. This term has been very vaguely used both by medical and other writers; we shall here restrict it to the Lepra tuberculosa, as it appears to have prevailed during the middle ages and down to modern times in Europe, and as it is now met with in various warm climates; the scaly variety, which in reality is a perfectly separate disease, being noticed in the article LEPRA. The affection here discussed is identical with the elephantiasis of the Greeks, and the lepra of the Arabians, while it is altogether different from the elephantiasis of the Arabians, and the lepra of the Greeks, which latter is the scaly lepra of our own day.

The most prominent symptoms of leprosy are summed up by Dr Copland in his "Medical Dictionary" as follows: "Dusky red or livid tubercles of various sizes on the face, ears, and extremities; thickened or rugose state of the skin, a diminutiou of its sensibility, and falling off of the hair, excepting that of the scalp; hoarse, nasal, or lost voice; ozæna; ulcerations of the surface and extreme foetor." These tubercles vary in size from that of a pea to an olive. Of all parts, the face is particularly affected, and especially the nose and ears.

The leprosy of Iceland, described by Dr (afterwards Sir Henry) Holland and others, that of the Faröe and Shetland Islands, described by Dr Edmonston and others, and that still met with in Africa, in the East and West Indies, and in many

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