THREE:"The guide said there were two kinds of leprosy, the 'wet' and the 'dry.' In the wet leprosy the body of the victim abounds in running sores, while in the dry there is nothing of the sort, and the appearance of the skin is not greatly different from what it is in health. The disease generally attacks the joints of the hands or feet, particularly those of the former, and the sufferer loses the first joint of the fingers and thumbs at about the same time. Then, in a few months, he loses the second joints, and in two or[Pg 415] three months more the third joints go. We saw lepers in all the stages of the diseasesome with the first joints of the hands gone, others who had lost the second joints, and others the third; while others, again, had lost the hands at the wrists. There seems to be no cure for most of the forms of the leprosy; and when a man is attacked with it, he must go at once to the hospital, no matter whether he is rich or poor. And when he has gone there, he generally remains till death relieves him from his sufferings.
One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams
