That statement is contrary to common belief, which attributes disease in a much greater proportion to those communicating with the sick, than to those keeping apart; but that is not of much consequence, since implicit reliance is not to be placed upon the opinions on that subject, held either by the public or the medical profession. On the whole, disease does affect, in a greater ratio, those who communicate with the sick, than those who do not, the instances which we excepted being included. But the difference, on the whole, is very trifling, at least much less than is usually supposed. One of the reasons that the difference is thought to be much more than is actually the case, is, that every case of a visitor or attendant being affected with disease, after or during communication, is bruited about, and becomes the subject of much gossip; while that of hundreds, equally exposed, who escape, is treated very judiciously with silence. There is no impartial hearing of evidence. All that is heard is taken in favour of one side, and instead of an opinion being formed from the whole bearings of the case, one is got up on partial statements, which, however, as it agrees with preconceived notions, answers very well. But that is not the way in which a case so important should be treated. Be it hoped that medical men, at least, will take more enlarged views, when their own reputation and the public weal are at stake. The partial statements remind us strongly of the self-deception of which many persons are the dupes, in respect to fortune-telling and the solving of dreams. Every instance of the divination of the fortune-teller, or the solution of a dream, having any, the most far-fetched, correspondence with the future history of the individual, is stored up in the memory, and adduced as undeniable evidence of the truth of those dark arts, however much a thousand facts may cry out against them as vile impositions. The prognostications must, of necessity, be right sometimes, in much the same manner as Louis the 14th declared those astrologers must at some time be correct, who were constantly foretelling his death. We now proceed to inquire into the circumstances which cause disease to attack those having communication with the sick, in a greater proportion than is observed to hold with those apart from them, yet living in the sphere of the epidemic causes, that is, generally speaking, in the same locality. _Exception 1st_, The greater proportion in which relatives and others inhabiting the same house with one sick of disease, are attacked, we would explain in this manner:— _1st_, The relatives, if inhabiting the same locality, are, like others, liable to the disease. They are suffering in general under depression from apprehension of losing a dear friend.