The linguistic root of tzaraath may mean smiting, in comparison with Arabic, in reference to a Talmudical explanation that it serves as a punishment for sin; it is quite possible that tzaraath was a general term for certain types of skin disease, rather than a particular condition, and the Talmud maintains a similar view, arguing that tzaraath referred generally to any disease that produces sores and eruptions on the skin.
Investigations of keratins extracted from wool by reduction hydrolysis and by alkaline hydrolysis showed that their chemical compositions and secondary structures were similar to original wool. The keratin isolates were similar in amino acid, Amides I and II, and secondary structure to each other and to original wool.
1 Keratin, the structural protein of epithelial cells in the outermost layers of the skin, has been isolated from hair, nails, hoofs, and feathers. 2  Reduction of the disulfide bonds to sulfhydryl groups results in dissociation of the peptide chains, the molecular weight of which is 25,000 to 28,000 each.