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THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 149,
'of the Christians, and decided to erect hospitals in all
important towns.
Among diseases leprosy (under this name a number of
different kinds of skin disease being included) engaged
particularly the attention of the public. The lepers were
shunned by the people on account of their horrible appearance,
even indeed by their own relations and friends ; they
were also dreaded on account of the danger of infection to
which others were exposed in their presence. The Christians
felt pity for these unfortunate people also, and gave
them protection and care in their hospitals. ST. BASIL
" embraced them as brothers, not for the purpose of making
a parade of his courage but to give an example to those
whom he entrusted with the care of them."* He assigned
to them a special department in his institution at Caesarea.
In Constantinople a hospital was devoted to lepersf and in
Italy leper-houses arose in many places at an earlier
period than institutions for other sick people.J In France
there were leper-houses as early as the time of ST.
GREGORY of Tours (560) and in a testamentary document
of the year 636, institutions of this kind are mentioned at
Verdun, Metz and Mastricht.§ One hundred years later
ST. OTHMAR collected the lepers from the districts near
St. Gall and erected a hospital for them. Christian philanthropy
provided, besides asylums for the poor and sick,
institutions in which the aged infirm, cripples, blind people,
women lying in, orphans, and deserted and foundling
children were received and taken care of.
The abandonment of newly-born babes was forbidden as
early as the time of VALENTINIAN : but this criminal practice
was supported by the public immorality.|| In the fifth
* GREGORY of Nazianzus. op. cit. Orat. viii.
t DUCANGE: Constantinop. christ., Paris 1680, iv, 165.
X MURATORI : Antiq. ital. med. sevi, T. i, Dissert. 16.
§ R. VIRCHOW : Zur Geschichte des Aussatzes in VIRCHOW'S Archiv, Bd. 20,
Berlin 1861, S. 169.
|| LECKY : Sittengeschichte Europas von Augustus bis zu Karl dem Grossen,
Leipzig 1870, ii, 20 etseq. (' History of European Morals').