[L. elephantiasis, a. Gr. ἐλεφαντίασις, f. ἐλέφας, ELEPHANT.] The name given to various kinds of cutaneous disease, which produce in the part affected a resemblance to an elephant’s hide. The best known are: a. E. Græcorum, a tubercular disease, often identified with Eastern leprosy; b. E. Arabum, called also Elephant Leg, and in the W. Indies Barbadoes Leg, which produces an induration and darkening of the skin, chiefly on the leg.
1581. Mulcaster, Positions, x. (1887), 57. Egyptian lepre, called Elephantiasis.
1656. Ridgley, Pract. Physick, 111. Elephantiasis of the Arabians, is a swelling of the Foot, wan, and looks like an Elephants Foot.
1807. Southey, Espriella’s Lett. (1814), III. 275. Those [letters] which should be thin look as if they had the elephantiasis.
1869. W. M. Rossetti, Mem. Shelley, Introd. 45. Shelley had a fancy … that he was about to be visited with elephantiasis.
