Emily Dickinson Lexicon

LEP'RO-SY, a. [See Leper.]

A foul cutaneous disease, appearing in dry, white, thin, scurfy scabs, attended with violent itching. It sometimes covers the whole body, rarely the face. One species of it is called elephantiasis. – Encyc. The term leprosy is loosely and incorrectly applied to two very distinct diseases, the scaly and the tuberculated, or the proper leprosy and the elephantiasis. The former is characterized by patches of smooth laminated scales, sometimes livid, but usually whitish; in the latter the skin is thickened, livid and tuberculated. It is called the black leprosy, but this term is also applied to the livid variety of the scaly leprosy. – Good.