PUERPERAL FEVER 257 



In the view of these facts it does appear a singular coinci- 

 dence that one man or woman should have ten, twenty, thirty, 

 or seventy cases of this rare disease following his or her 

 footsteps with the keenness of a beagle, through the streets 

 and lanes of a crowded city, while the scores that cross the 

 same paths on the same errands know it only by name. It 

 is a series of similar coincidences which has led us to con- 

 sider the dagger, the musket, and certain innocent-looking 

 white powders as having some little claim to be regarded as 

 dangerous. It is the practical inattention to similar coin- 

 cidences which has given rise to the unpleasant but often 

 necessary documents called indictments, which has sharpened 

 a form of the cephalotome sometimes employed in the case 

 of adults, and adjusted that modification of the fillet which 

 delivers the world of those who happen to be too much in 

 the way while such striking coincidences are taking place. 



I shall now mention a few instances in which the disease 

 appears to have been conveyed by the process of direct inocu- 

 lation. 



Dr. Campbell, of Edinburgh, states that in October, 1821, 

 he assisted at the post-mortem examination of a patient who 

 died with puerperal fever. He carried the pelvic viscera in 

 his pocket to the class-room. The same evening he attended 

 a woman in labor without previously changing his clothes; 

 this patient died. The next morning he delivered a woman 

 with the forceps; she died also, and of many others who 

 were seized with the disease within a few weeks, three shared 

 the same fate in succession. 



In June, 1823, he assisted some of his pupils at the autopsy 

 of a case of puerperal fever. He was unable to wash his 

 hands with proper care, for want of the necessary accom- 

 modations. On getting home he found that two patients 

 required his assistance. He went without further ablution 

 or changing his clothes; both these patients died with puer- 

 peral fever." This same Dr. Campbell is one of Dr. 

 Churchill's authorities against contagion. 



Mr. Roberton says that in one instance within his knowl- 

 edge a practitioner passed the catheter for a patient with 

 puerperal fever late in the evening; the same night he at- 



m Lond. Mtd. CoMtttt, December 10, 1831. 

 (9) HC XXXVIII 



