资料题：Leprosy is described as the disease（　）。

Of all the diseases that beset the human race, leprosy(麻风病)is .by far the hardest to bear.It is usually disfiguring, often crippling, and not uncommonly fatal.What distinguishes leprosy from all other ailments is not the physiological dissolution its victims must frequently endure, but the fear, horror, and violent loathing it excites in others.The belief that leprosy makes its victims unfit for either the sympathy or the society of other men is supported by more than simple aversion.Even the Bible endorses the view that the leper is unclean, a creature to be shunned by all men.The plague reached is zenith in 13th and 14h century Europe, and was almost extinct by the middle of the 16th.Many reasons have been given to account for its decline, but the timely development of a diagnostic technique to distinguish it from other disfiguring diseases is considered the most persuasive.Most authorities believe that only a fraction of the innumerable victims of medieval leprophobia (麻风病恐惧症) were actually suffering from leprosy.Modem leprologists are capable of understanding the extraordinary horror of leprosy that haunted ancient and medieval man, but they find t present- day persistence peculiar.Leprosy is no longer the mystery it once was, and modem understanding of its ce8u18e8 and cures permitsmost lepers to lead quite normal life.