Descriptions of a disease believed to be vitiligo date back to a passage in the medical text Ebers Papyrus circa 1500 BC in ancient Egypt. Mentions of whitening of the skin was also present circa 1400 BC in sacred Indian texts such as Atharvaveda as well as Shinto prayers in the Far East circa 1200 BC. The Hebrew word "Zora'at" from the Old Testament book of Leviticus[23] dating to 1280 BCE[24] (or 1312 BCE[25]) described a group of skin disease associated with white spots, and a subsequent translation to Greek led to continued conflation of those with vitiligo with leprosy and spiritual uncleanliness.[23] Medical sources in the ancient world such as Hippocrates often did not differentiate between vitiligo and leprosy, often grouping these diseases together. In Arabic literature, the word "alabras" has been associated with vitiligo, with this word found in the Koran. The name "vitiligo" was first used by the Roman physician Aulus Cornelius Celsus in his classic medical text De Medicina