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Brown. -- I am more inclined than I was at one time to attach importance to the influence of contagion. In two cases which have come under my notice the disease seems to have been communicated from husband to wife, resulting fatally in a short period in both cases.

Ward. -- Perhaps persons much with consumptives, -- rooming and sleeping with them, -- are much more likely to contract the disease. I think such cases have several times come under my observation.

Smith. -- I have now under my care a lady, -- widow, -- whose husband died of consumption. No hereditary influence predisposed to phthisis, but from intense grief lowering vitality, or from materies moral derived from husband, or, as is probable, both causes acting together, she contracted phthisis. She has hemorrhage and tuberculated lungs, and probably will die before many months. Before the death of her husband, three years since, she suffered severely from whooping-cough. First hemorrhage about a year since.

Calkins. -- In very many cases, I have the opinion from my own observations, that consumption is communicable by contagion or infection. The cases of persons attacked after exposure have been those who have been confined with the sick, in small, ill-ventilated rooms, or where the persons exposed have slept with the sick for some time. In several instances, persons who have no hereditary tendency to tuberculosis, have been suddenly attacked with all the phenomena of phthisis after full and continued exposure. My observation has continued for a period of twenty years, most of this time in Hampden County, Mass.

Blanchard. -- An interesting case occurred here some years since, in which consumption seemed to be promoted by contagion. The case was that of a young wife who never had a child. During the sickness of the husband with consumption, the wife was constant and assiduous in her attentions, remaining much of the time in the sick-room, and notwithstanding the remonstrances of friends, sleeping there at night, and (during at least a portion of the time) in the same bed with the invalid. There was an inherited predisposition to consumption, her mother having died of that disease, but there was no special manifestation of it, in her case, until after this continued contact. After the death of her husband it rapidly developed, and she succumbed to its ravages. Making due allowance for the effects of anxiety and grief, it always appeared to me that contact and infectious air had a large share in the development of the disease.

Rice. -- I am a firm believer that consumption is a contagious disease, much more so than is generally believed. I have in my mind several cases where there was almost positive evidence of contagion. Mrs. J. C. M , a lady about sixty, died last spring, after having the disease two years. Her husband, before she was taken sick, was a perfectly healthy man, with sound lungs. He took care of her, slept with her, and nursed her. Soon after her death he began to cough, and went rapidly down with consumption. There have been no cases of the kind in his family for two generations.. I believe he took the disease by infection.

Bullard. -- I know of two instances of the wife's taking the disease by sleeping with her husband, and when the wife had no hereditary taint

I believe that consumption is caused or promoted by contagion, or infection; so perhaps a better word would be ingrafting of pulmonary tubercle, and it is to avoid this that I would have a child, already predisposed to the disease, removed entirely from its influences. I think that many physicians, if not most, know cases in their practice where the nurse of a consumptive patient has died of tuberculosis within a short time. Case: Miss , aged 34, a strong, healthy, fleshy woman, weighing upwards of 140 pounds, no consumption in the family, nursed Mrs. B during a long sickness, -- tuberculosis, -- which continued nearly two years from first attack. It was noticed that she had a slight hacking cough during the last of her attendance, but no particular notice of it was taken at that time. Evident signs of tuberculosis were found shortly after the death of Mrs. B., and within eighteen mouths she died of well-marked consumption. I have seen other cases, but none as well marked as this.

Knight. -- Yes; under very favorable circumstances.

Carbee. -- Yes; by constantly inhaling fetid breath.

Hopkins. -- I have left the question unanswered. If consumption does occasionally follow close upon whooping-cough, or measles, it is probably an open question whether the impression left by the specific contagion were, it- self, the predisposing cause of phthisis, or only the exciting cause of a predisposition before implanted. I have thus offered what is suggestive, not statistical.

Carr. -- Yes; as a sequel to contagious disease. It sometimes follows virulent clap, and where there is hereditary taint, frequent miscarriage induces the disease. Everything which has lowered the vital forces below a certain degree, whether our habits, location, sickness, exposure to sudden atmospheric changes, or any other debilitating influence, promotes the development of consumption in a person springing from consumptive parents.