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O. W. HOLMES 



Copland. Considers it proved that puerperal fever may be propa- 

 gated by the hands and the clothes, or either, of a third person, the 

 bed-clothes or body-clothes of a patient. Mentions a new series of 

 cases, one of which he saw, with the practitioner who had attended 

 them. She was the sixth he had had within a few days. All died. 

 Dr. Copland insisted that contagion had caused these cases; ad-- 

 vised precautionary measures, and t*w practitioner had no other 

 cases for a considerable time. Considers it criminal, after the evi- 

 dence adduced, which he could have quadrupled, and the weight 

 of authority brought forward, for a practitioner to be the medium 

 of transmitting contagion and death to his patients. Dr. Copland 

 lays down rules similar to those suggested by myself, and is there- 

 fore entitled to the same epithet for so doing. Medical Dictionary, 

 New York, 1852. Article, Puerperal States and Diseases. 



If there is any appetite for facts so craving as to be yet unap- 

 peased, lassata, necdum satiata, more can be obtained. Dr. Hodge 

 remarks that " the frequency and importance of this singular cir- 

 cumstance (that the disease is occasionally more prevalent with one 

 practitioner than another) has been exceedingly overrated." More 

 than thirty strings of cases, more than two hundred and fifty suffer- 

 ers from puerperal fever, more than one hundred and thirty deaths, 

 appear as the results of a sparing estimate of such among the facts 

 I have gleaned as could be numerically valued. These facts consti- 

 tute, we may take it for granted, but a small fraction of those that 

 have actually occurred. The number of them might be greater, but 

 " 't is enough, 't will serve," in Mercutio's modest phrase, so far as 

 irequency is concerned. For a just estimate of the importance of 

 the singular circumstance, it might be proper to consult the languid 

 survivors, the widowed husbands, and the motherless children, as 

 well as " the unfortunate accoucheur." 



