01481nam a2200241   4500000000100000008004100001260002400042653001200066653001200078653001200090653001200102653001400114653002200128653003100150653001300181100001600194245003200210856004200242300001600284050001600300520090500316020001801221       2009                            d  bBoydellaWoodbridge10aHistory10aEngland10aTo 150010aleprosy10aTreatment10aSocial Conditions10aPerson affected by leprosy10aMedicine1 aRawcliffe C00aLeprosy in medieval England  uhttp://www.boydell.co.uk/43832739.HTM  axii, 421 p.  a130.1 RAW b3 aSet firmly in the medical, religious and cultural milieu of the European Middle Ages, this book is the first serious academic study of a disease surrounded by misconceptions and prejudices. Even specialists will be surprised to learn that most of our stereotyped ideas about the segregation of medieval lepers originated in the nineteenth century; that leprosy excited a vast range of responses, from admiration to revulsion; that in the later Middle Ages it was diagnosed readily even by laity; that a wide range of treatment was available, that medieval leper hospitals were no more austere than the monasteries on which they were modelled; that the decline of leprosy was not monocausal but implied a complex web of factors - medical, environmental, social and legal. Carole Rawcliffe writes with consummate skill, subtlety and rigour; her book will change forever the image of the medieval leper.  a9781843834540