340 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



"witliin 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 bed- 

 ding 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 dis- 

 covered 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 in- 

 vestigate the subject, and a circular letter of inquiry concerning 

 cases of contraction by contagion was sent to each member. Re- 

 ports 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 per- 

 fectly well. 



2. Three instances of a wife becoming infected from her hus- 

 band, 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 frcm 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 fa- 

 vorable to contagion, and it is not surprising that so many of the 

 recorded instances relate to contraction of the disease from hus- 

 band or wife. And yet it can hardly be claimed that most of 

 those who lose husband or wife by consumption contract the dis- 

 ease. Of G,167 patients who had been treated at the Brompton 

 Hospital in 18G3, but 239 were widowed. Of these, however, 106 

 had lost husband or wife by consumption. Dr. Cotton, of Eug- 



