Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language

208 Forbidden Words
Lazarus, who was ‘full of sores’, assuaged at death in Abraham’s bosom. 7 As a
description of leprosy, the names began as a general-for-specific euphemism
for any deforming disease, but were most commonly applied to leprosy. Their
use may also reflect the ignorance surrounding the disease in these early times –
many different cutaneous complaints, including psoriasis and syphilis, were
confused with true leprosy. 8 The proper name Lazarus also gave rise to the term
lazaret(to), used of a medieval hospital established and run by the Order of
Saint Lazarus (of Bethany) 9 to care for the diseased and poor and, more
particularly, lepers. The term later came to be used exclusively of leprosaria,
and therefore shows the same pejorative narrowing as the word asylum.
Leprosy has always been highly stigmatized, and perhaps the poverty of
euphemism simply reflects the despised status of the leper. In the eyes of the
rest of the community, leprosy was the punishment for sin and heresy; lepers
were viewed as both physically and morally dangerous. The following description
(our translation) comes from the fourteenth-century surgery text
written by the Brabant physician Thomaes Scellinck. According to contemporary
theories of the ‘humours’, the horrible physical disfigurement of lepers
was felt to reflect an inner corruption and mental derangement (and note the
common-sense separation of lepers).
Leprosy is corruption of the body externally and internally . . . their complexion [i.e.
the lepers’ combination of humours] is bad and corrupting and so are their thoughts
and their mind is bad and poisoned. And therefore one should separate them from
healthy people. (Scellinck 1343: 198) 10
In particular, leprosy was associated with lust and sexual misdemeanours.
Within society, lepers were branded tanquam mortuus ‘as though dead’. Fear
of contagion deprived them of all normal community rights such as marriage
and laws of inheritance, and forced them to undergo appalling rites of exclusion.
In most places, lepers were made to dress distinctively and to sound a
warning bell whenever they approached. Occasionally, they were even
expected to undergo a sort of ritual burial before entering the leprosarium –
presumably marking their civic death. 11 Their animal-like physical appearance
was perceived to be fitting punishment for their transgressions against
God. Along with other despised members of the community, lepers were
commonly blamed for disasters and epidemics like the plague. An effective
means of bringing contumely upon your enemy was to spread a rumour that
s/he had leprosy. The social upheaval through terror of contagion that frequently
went with epidemic diseases like leprosy encouraged moral judgment
of this sort; in the medieval mind, it strengthened the connection between
physical and mental corruption.
Despite the fact that there is no longer any mystery surrounding the cause
and cure of leprosy, much of the stigma attached to the disease still exists