And the priest shall see him: and, behold, if the rising be white in the skin, and it have turned the hair white, and there be quick raw flesh in the rising;
If the rising be white. This BRIGHT WHITE leprosy is the most malignant and inveterate of all the varieties the disease exhibits, and it was marked by the following distinctive signs:-a glossy white and spreading scale, upon an elevated base, the elevation depressed in the middle, but without a change of colour; the black hair on the patches participating in the whiteness; 'quick' - i:e., live, raw flesh in the rising; i:e., ulcerating, and the scaly patches themselves perpetually enlarging their boundary. Several of these characters, taken separately, belong to other blemishes of the skin as well, so that none of them was to be taken alone; and it was only when the whole of them concurred, that the Jewish priest, in his capacity of physician, was to pronounce the disease a malignant leprosy. If it spread over the entire frame without producing any ulceration, it lost its contagious power by degrees; or, in other words, ran through its course and exhausted itself. In that case, there being no longer any fear of further evil either to the individual himself or to the community, the patient was declared clean by the priest, while the dry scales were yet upon him, and restored to society. If, on the contrary, the patches ulcerated, and quick or fungous flesh sprang up in them, the purulent matter of which, if brought into contact with the skin of other persons, would be taken into the constitution by means of absorbent vessels, the priest was at once to pronounce it an inveterate leprosy; a temporary confinement was declared to be totally unnecessary, and he was regarded as unclean for life (Dr. Good).
'It is evident,' says Dr. Mead ('Medica Sacra, p. 14), 'that two species of the disease are described in these verses; one in which the skin was ulcerated, so that the live flesh appeared underneath; the other, in which there was an efflorescent appearance on the surface of the skin, which also became rough, and in a manner scaly. From this distinction the former disease was contagious, and the latter not. For scales like bran, dry and light, do not penetrate the skin; but it is purulent matter, discharged from ulcers, which infects the surface of the body.'
Other skin affections, which had a tendency to terminate in leprosy, though they were not decided symptoms when alone, were,