PHENOMENA OF INFECTION. 95 



The young infant is remarkable in its 

 Infancy, comparative freedom from the infectious 

 diseases of childhood. During late foetal 

 life the unborn child may suffer from a large number 

 of infectious diseases which perchance attack the 

 mother, and many instances are on record of infants 

 being born with typhoid fever and small-pox; indeed 

 the foetus has been known to survive an attack of small- 

 pox and be born with a scarred face, a circumstance 

 which attended the birth of the great obstetrician, 

 Mauriceau. To measles and scarlet fever, and even 

 such a virulent infection as yellow fever, the infant up 

 to the sixth month and often longer, is practically 

 immune; the same is true of typhoid fever and other 

 exanthemata; yet to small-pox it is highly susceptible. 

 From one infection in particular should the new- 

 born be protected, namely, erysipelas of the umbilical 

 cord, a disease, as we have seen, which has great danger 

 in it for the mother also. Another infection for which 

 the umbilical cord is a portal of entry is tetanus, an 

 accident fortunately not often encountered. It occurs, 

 however, sporadically in a few localities where the 

 bacilli are numerous in the ground, and then among 

 the poorest and least cleanly of the people. 



At the time of birth, if the mother is suffering from 

 gonorrhoea, the infant is liable to three localizations of 

 this disease, viz., in the mouth and conjunctivae of the 

 eyes, and in females, in the vulva also. Gonorrhoeal 



