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340 within four months of the introduction of the first case, and four of them died. No new cases occurred after the remaining sick had been removed. In 1787 an inmate of a convent in Bilbao, Spain, died of consumption, and, as was customary then, the bedding and furniture were destroyed and the room thoroughly cleaned before it was again occupied. Two months later the new occupant of the room was attacked by the disease and afterward died. The same cleaning and destruction of furniture followed, but the next occupant succumbed within a year. It was then discovered that certain cords which might have been the means of conveying the disease had been allowed to remain in the room. These were now removed, the same precautions taken as before, and no other case had appeared at the end of five years. A few years ago the British Medical Association made an attempt to investigate the subject, and a circular letter of inquiry concerning cases of contraction by contagion was sent to each member. Reports of three hundred and twenty-one instances were received, two hundred and twenty-three of which related to husbands or wives who were thought to have contracted the disease the one from the other. It is worthy of note that many observers of long experience had seen but one or two instances, and some had not seen any.

The following observations relate to instances in which there have been more than one husband or wife, and embrace all such that have been recorded:

1. Thirteen instances in which a consumptive man had married more than one healthy wife. There were in all thirty-one wives, of whom twenty-seven contracted the disease, four remaining perfectly well.

2. Three instances of a wife becoming infected from her husband, and a second husband from her.

3. Two instances of women dying of consumption, after each had lost two husbands by the same disease.

4. Ten instances of husbands contracting the disease from their first wives, and their second wives in turn from them.

5. One instance in which a man had become infected from a diseased wife, his second wife from him, and a second husband from her.

The marriage relation furnishes conditions exceptionally favorable to contagion, and it is not surprising that so many of the recorded instances relate to contraction of the disease from husband or wife. And yet it can hardly be claimed that most of those who lose husband or wife by consumption contract the disease. Of 6,167 patients who had been treated at the Brompton Hospital in 1863, but 239 were widowed. Of these, however, 106 had lost husband or wife by consumption. Dr. Cotton, of