Having thus determined the value and signification of the terms, as used by different authors, and which must necessarily be introduced on the present occasion, we come to the consideration of that momentous question, which has excited so keen an interest in the political, mercantile, and medical circles of the present age, and which has been farther heightened by the late reference of the subject to the Legislature—WHETHER EPIDEMICAL DISEASES BE EVER PROPAGATED BY CONTAGION?——It is impossible to imagine a question of deeper importance; it not only involves the general safety of mankind, but is intimately connected with the commercial welfare of nations; for, as it has been truly observed, if these diseases be not contagious, Quarantine laws are absurd, and commerce needlessly burthened: the establishment of lines of circumvallation, guarded by cordons of troops, and the appointment of armed police to confine the diseased to their habitations, among their yet uninjured friends and relatives, are perverse and barbarous regulations, and the fears thus unnecessarily induced are as dangerous to the community as they are pernicious in their effects to the common feelings of humanity. But, on the other hand, if the doctrine be true to the extent our most accurate observers have deliberately reported, municipal restraints cannot be too rigidly enforced, nor can the conduct of those speculative theorists be too severely reprehended, who, by lulling the ignorant and unwary into false notions of security, not only deprive them of the obvious means of safety, but render them even the intermediate agents of disease and death, to their families and neighbours.