institution at Greenside, and apparently with money granted to them for that purpose, by John Robertson, a merchant in Edinburgh, and others, in pursuance of some previous vow.27 On the 23d November 1591, five leper inhabitants of the city were consigned to this hospital.28 Two of the wives of the lepers voluntarily shut themselves up in the hospital along with their diseased husbands. I shall afterwards recur to the strict laws which the inmates were bound to observe. In a charter of rights given to the city in 1636 by Charles I. there are enumerated among the other grants which he confirms to them, “the lands of old called the Greenside, with the leper-house and yard situate on the same, arable lands, banks, and marishes thereof, for the present occupied by the lepers of the said house.”29 The hospital, however, does not appear to have been of long duration. In 1652, the magistrates ordered that the roof of the leper-house be taken off, and its wood, slates, etc. used to repair the town milns and other public buildings;30 and in 1657, a similar appropriation was made of the stones contained in the walls of the leper-house, and in the fence around its yard or garden.31

Aberdeen.—In an old manuscript Description of bothe Touns of Aberdeen, by James Gordon, as quoted in the entertaining Book of Bon Accord, the following notice of a leper hospital at Aberdeen occurs:32 “Such as go out at the Gallowgate port towards Old Aberdeen, haff way almost, may see the place where of old stood the lepers’ hospital, called the seick-house, hard by the way syde. To which there was a chappell adjoyned, dedicated to St. Anna, quhome the Papists account patronesse of the lepers. The citizens licencit one Mr. Alexander Galloway, the person of Kinkell, for to build that chappell anno 1519. Now both these buildings are gone, and scarcely is the name knowne to many” “On the 18th August 1574, the Regent Morton, and the Lords of the Privy-Council commanded the Magistrates of Aberdeen to uptake fra James Leslie, present possessioure of the croft and myre pertening to the Lipperfolk, the yeirle dewtie tharof off the five yeiris bypast; and thairvith, and sic vthir collectioune as may be hade, to caus the said house be theikkit (thatched, roofed) and reparit for the resett of the said Lipperfolk in tym cuming: and to caus roup the said croft and myre, to quha vill giff maist yeirle dewtie tharfor fra thre yeir to thre yeir: And to caus the haill proffeit to be employit vpon the upolding of the said hous, and sustentation of the Liperfolks that salbe tharin.”33

In the beginning of the eighteenth century the hospital and grounds were sold under the direction of the magistrates, and the money received appropriated to the establishment of a fund for a proposed lunatic asylum. The leper croft now belongs to King’s College.34

Rothfan, Elgin.—A leper-house seems to have existed from an early period at Rothfan, near Elgin. John Byseth made a gift to this hospital at Rothfan of the Church of Kyltalargyn, for the avowed purpose of maintaining seven lepers, a servant and chaplain. The donor retained to himself and his successors the privilege of preserving the number complete, by filling up the vacancies. On his request and presentation, William, prior of the hospital, was admitted to the church in 1226.35

The precise date of Byseth’s charters is not preserved, but they seem to have been drawn out during the reign of Alexander II. or III. From their phraseology the hospital evidently was in existence previous to that time.

The lands pertaining to this hospital are still known under the name of the Leper Lands,36 though the institution itself has been long obsolete.

Shetland.—Lastly, we have records of several small and temporary lazar-houses in Shetland. Thus, long ago, Brand (the honest missionary, as Hibbert terms him) states that in that country the “scurvy sometimes degenerates into leprosy, and is discerned by hairs falling from the eyebrows, the nose falling in, etc., which” (he adds), “when the people come to know, they separate and set them apart for fear of infection, building huts or little houses for them in the field. I saw the ruines of one of these houses about half-a-mile from Lerwick, where a woman was for some years kept for this reason. These scorbutick persons are more ordinarily in Dunrossness and Delton, and more rare in other places.”37

“Formerly” (says Dr. Edmondston, another and more recent author on the Shetlands), “when leprosy was very prevalent, the unfortunate individuals who were seized with it were removed to small huts erected for the purpose, and there received a scanty allowance of provisions daily, until the disease put a period to their miserable existence.”38

Number of Hospitals, and Extent of the Disease.

The Scottish lazar-houses that I have thus enumerated, though few in number, are still sufficient to show that the disease for which they were instituted was generally diffused over the extent of the kingdom. Thus, we have found the establishments in question spread from Berwickshire to Shetland, and from Aberdeen to Ayr. More research than I have been able to bestow upon the matter would no doubt bring to light notices of various additional hospitals. In some Scottish towns names and notices still exist sufficient to lead to the probability of lazar-houses having formerly existed in them, though that evidence is in other respects altogether incomplete.

In the immediate neighbourhood of Edinburgh a leper station probably existed at a date greatly earlier than that of