![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Odd Corners of My Brain
Dec. 31st, 2013 12:14 pmChange: I accomplished a slight change this morning, simply by putting on perfume. I do so very little and lightly given how much I whine about people wearing too much scent and potential allergenic effects. But I had bought this vanilla-grapefruit sort of stuff at Sephora a while ago and it is really quite different than the woodsy orientals I normally go for. Doing this actually did help my mood.
Odd coincidence: It turns out that a newish guy at work knows the husband of someone I grew up with. Small world.
Knowledge Could Be Power: I learned that my corporate boss has a phobia about giant spiders. I will not use this information. Yet.
Leprosy: Having watched Ben Hur on a plane the other day, I have been obsessing slightly on the subject of leprosy. As it happens, a friend and I once invested some time in studying leprosy in the Bible. The basic conconclusion was that the disease called by that name was probably not what we call leprosy nowadays, but was more likely a filarial disease, possibly elephantiasis. (The real point is that spiritual leprosy has little to do with physical leprosy.) But what I am wondering about is whether leprosy, which is not very contagious, was ever really widespread in the Middle East and Europe and, if so, how it declined before the antibiotics which can easily cure it nowadays.
I have, by the way, in one of those things that may surprise you to know about me, shaken hands with a (cured) leper. I have also broken bread with a gypsy king. But I have never seen an episode of Doctor Who.
Odd coincidence: It turns out that a newish guy at work knows the husband of someone I grew up with. Small world.
Knowledge Could Be Power: I learned that my corporate boss has a phobia about giant spiders. I will not use this information. Yet.
Leprosy: Having watched Ben Hur on a plane the other day, I have been obsessing slightly on the subject of leprosy. As it happens, a friend and I once invested some time in studying leprosy in the Bible. The basic conconclusion was that the disease called by that name was probably not what we call leprosy nowadays, but was more likely a filarial disease, possibly elephantiasis. (The real point is that spiritual leprosy has little to do with physical leprosy.) But what I am wondering about is whether leprosy, which is not very contagious, was ever really widespread in the Middle East and Europe and, if so, how it declined before the antibiotics which can easily cure it nowadays.
I have, by the way, in one of those things that may surprise you to know about me, shaken hands with a (cured) leper. I have also broken bread with a gypsy king. But I have never seen an episode of Doctor Who.
