14 JULY 1906, Page 17

THE INFECTION OF CONSUMPTION.

[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sra,—In your issue of June 30th the reviewer of a medical work says that in former days only a doctor before his time here and there looked upon consumption as an infectious dis- order. I do not know if it will interest your readers to learn that such a one was the father of Charles Darwin. I remember my surprise in 1852, three years after his, death, at hearing from a relative that be had impressed the danger upon her some thirty years earlier when she was hastening to nurse a cousin dying of the disorder, and urged precautions, which she faithfully obeyed. The reminiscence flashed upon me with great vividness in reading your reviewer's sentence.—I