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Of course, the above are only a few of the causes that might be suggested. It is hoped that if any correspondent knows of any peculiar circumstances which he may deem important, in reference to the disease, information will be given in detail, as all facts upon the various questions will be gratefully received.

First Question.

CONSUMPTION CAUSED OR PROMOTED BY HEREDITARY INFLUENCES?

We have the following result from our correspondents: --

This table shows at a glance that only one of two hundred and ten physicians denied the great importance of hereditary influence in the production of consumption. Coming, as these returns do, not from theorists, but from physicians who see families grow up and die under their own care, this result, though perhaps not unexpected by some readers, certainly not by myself, is very significant. If we can ever have faith in medical testimony, every parent, and, still more, every one preparing, by marriage, to become a parent, should consider himself as forewarned by the above table. Still further, will not the State feel obliged, at some future time, to restrain the marriage of persons liable to breed consumption, even if it be considered improper and contrary to liberty, at present, to interfere with or prevent any such marriage, however inevitably it may be destined to produce a consumptive, wretched progeny? Massachusetts has yet much to do in "Stirpiculture," ere she can claim to be really a mother to her people.

Until that period arrives, each man and each woman is bound to consider this most important question before marriage.

I am well aware that this caution may seem to ignore all those keener instincts and emotions which usually govern the attractions of young people to each other before marriage. I know, moreover, the beauty of that self-sacrifice which would, at times, unite one healthy young person to another perhaps far advanced in disease. But sentiment must be ignored in any suggestions drawn from these tables of God's law, whereby we know that the defects, as well as the high qualities, of the parent descend upon the child "unto the third and fourth generation."

Extracts from our Correspondents' letters relative to this question.

Brown. -- I do not remember to have seen a well-marked case of consumption where I could not trace the taint in the ancestry of the patient.

Burr. -- I can call to mind several families where I have been able to trace consumption through three generations.

Gott. -- Whole families are swept off by the hereditary taint. I saw, the other day, a youth of sixteen, just gone with the disease, who is the sixth of eight children that have died of the disease. I have noticed where the disease has been so destructive, that the complexion is blond, -- light and light eyes.

King. -- I do not remember any case of consumption which did not appear to have an hereditary foundation.

Parks. -- The only case to contra-indicate a belief m the hereditary tendency of consumption, and favoring the theory of Niemeyer-- which I recollect -- was one of fatal pulmonary consumption, in which for a year, or upwards, preceding the pulmonary consumption (as fully declared by rational symptoms and physical signs), there were several attacks of acute bronchitis, which could not be accounted for by exposure to cold or otherwise. The patient was an only child, whose mother is now living, at an advanced age, and whose own two children (her only ones) are living, and not consumptive adults. The patient's father I know nothing of.

Hurlbert. -- I find here, young men (born of consumptive mothers), who follow the sea, and have fine, well-developed chests, who are as often the victims as those who stay on shore, and are not nearly as well developed. All our sea-faring men are well formed, but it does not protect against the deadly germ of a consumptive ancestry. Oftentimes I find a whole family tainted with this dreadful plague, when the parents are cousins, and no hereditary influences are traceable.

Gammell. -- I will cite the case of a family living in Berkshire County, the facts of which are all authentic. The father, to-day, is a hale old man, over ninety years of age; the mother died of phthisis about twenty years ago. Of the thirteen children, four have died of the same disease; of forty-eight grandchildren, eight have died of the same. These all have occupied places of ordinary healthfulness, and all have been engaged in agricultural pursuits.

My opinion is that hereditary influences are rapidly developed under the influence of soil-moisture, or any cause that lowers the vitality, and that any employment which deprives such a person of sunlight, pure air, or out-of-door exercise, conduces to the development of the disease.

Bonney.-- About the year 1831, Rev. Dr. B -- came to this place from Boston, and was settled over the Congregational Church. The last years of his residence here he occupied a house, situated upon an apparently dry and healthy and slightly elevated piece of ground; but the sills were near the ground, and from the bank (once the margin of the Connecticut River) some three or four rods distant from the house, issue numerous springs. (1) I am told that the doctor's wife was confined to her house in Boston, at one time, for a year, with some form of skin disease.