PUERPERAL FEVER 243 



livered thirty women, residing in different parts of an ex- 

 tensive suburb, of which number sixteen caught the disease 

 and all died. These were the only cases which had occurred 

 for a considerable time in Manchester. The other midwives 

 connected with the same charitable institution as the woman 

 already mentioned are twenty-five in number, and deliver, on 

 an average, ninety women a week, or about three hun- 

 dred and eighty a month. None of these women had a case 

 of puerperal fever. " Yet all this time this woman was 

 crossing the other midwives in every direction, scores of 

 the patients of the charity being delivered by them in the 

 very same quarters where her cases of fever were hap- 

 pening." 



Mr. Roberton remarks that little more than half the 

 women she delivered during this month took the fever; that 

 on some days all escaped, on others only one or more out 

 of three or four; a circumstance similar to what is seen 

 in other infectious maladies. 



Dr. Blundell says : " Those who have never made the 

 experiment can have but a faint conception how difficult 

 it is to obtain the exact truth respecting any occurrence in 

 which feelings and interests are concerned. Omitting 

 particulars, then, I content myself with remarking, gen- 

 erally, that from more than one district I have received 

 accounts of the prevalence of puerperal fever in the prac- 

 tice of some individuals, while its occurrence in that of 

 others, in the same neighborhood, was not observed. Some, 

 as I have been told, have lost ten, twelve, or a greater 

 number of patients, in scarcely broken succession ; like their 

 evil genius, the puerperal fever has seemed to stalk behind 

 them wherever they went. Some have deemed it prudent 

 to retire for a time from practice. In fine, that this fever 

 may occur spontaneously, I admit; that its infectious na- 

 ture may be plausibly disputed, I do not deny; but I add, 

 considerately, that in my own family I had rather that 

 those I esteemed the most should be delivered, unaided, 

 in a stable, by the mangerside, than that they should re- 

 ceive the best help, in the fairest apartment, but exposed 

 to the vapors of this pitiless disease. Gossiping friends, 

 wet-nurses, monthly nurses, the practitioner himself, these 



