CONSUMPTION. 163 



of the English colonists died from consumption during 

 this time, and that one of these suffered from the dis- 

 ease before he came on the island. 



"The testimony which relates to the contagiousness 

 of this disease between husband and wife is of a similar 

 negative character. Dr. Schnyder, of Switzerland, 

 gives a record of 844 cases of consumption occurring 

 among married people. In 445 of these the husband 

 only, and in 367 the wife only, was consumptive, while 

 in 32 instances both husband and wife were affected, 

 showing that in 812 of these cases there was no proof 

 of contagion. Dr. Schnyder furthermore says that 

 four of the thirty cases came to him fresh from the 

 matrimonial altar affected with the first signs of con- 

 sumption, and he believes that in spite of all warnings 

 young people are frequently married while suffering 

 from this disease. Out of 1,000 phthisical patients 

 Cotton met with 11, 7 men and 4 women, who had 

 previously lost a husband or a wife from this disease. 

 Reginald Thompson, out of 15,000 consumptives, re- 

 cords 15 cases in which wives had been apparently in- 

 fected from their husbands. Out of 6,167 patients the 

 second report of the Brompton Hospital for Consump- 

 tion (1863) gives 239 widowed persons, 83 males and 

 156 females, who had previously lost a husband or wife 

 from phthisis; i. e., 1.7 per cent. Dr. Austin Flint 

 contributes the history of 670 cases of consumption 

 affecting husbands and wives, and among these there 

 were only five in which a suspicion existed that the dis- 

 ease might have been contracted from one or the other; 

 but it is certain, he says, that the instances in which 



