An editorial comment in _The Medical Record_ of April 14th, upon a paper by Dr. Hamilton, of Philadelphia, may serve as an apology for some remarks on a subject which ordinarily seems to possess scarcely more interest for practicing physicians than for "practical" laymen; both being wont to lay the finger of incredulity against the nose of scorn when they turn their deafest ears to the voice of the sanitarian. In the present very unsettled condition of professional opinion as to the diagnosis of typhoid fever--passably good authorities in India, on Western mountain peaks, and even nearer home, differing widely thereanent--I shall not attempt here to discuss its etiology, or to single out for reprobation any particular one of the several kinds of bacteria which have been respectively described as its exclusive cause. Suffice it merely to hint that there may be possible source of error in statistical arguments touching its relative frequency in town or country. But, waiving this, I am not aware that "professed sanitarians" have ascribed to "sewer-gas" alone such pre-eminence over other vehicles of filth or fungi as the article in question imputes. On the contrary, I believe that the majority of cases of enteric fever which have been traced accurately to their origin have been traced to other and more tangible contaminations of food or water. Nevertheless there is strong evidence, which has stood the test of much cross examination, that the so-called "filth diseases" deserve their name in this respect: that whatever be the specific _tertium quid_ which determines their occurrence in the individual, filth-poisoning (_i. e._, the imbibition, through some channel, of the products of organic decomposition) is an essential factor in their genesis.