SEPTICEMIA OF PREGNANCY. 175 
CHAPTER VI. 
SEPTICZIMIA OF PREGNANCY. 
ConFINING the use of the term to proper limits, puerperal fever can only occur 
after labor has set in; and seldom does it attack mothers before delivery is 
nearly if not quite completed. The disease about to be discussed so closely 
resembles that fever it has been considered identical, and therefore given the 
same name. But this is manifestly wrong ; for while they have many features in 
common, there are yet some that are at variance to such a marked degree they 
must be accepted as distinct affections. Consequently it becomes necessary to 
coin a name, and the propriety of that chosen will appear anon. 
Septicemia of pregnancy, like puerperal fever, is a disease produced by septic 
matter which has entered the blood. But while the latter occurs only after 
labor has commenced, the former attacks its victims during pregnancy ; and they 
are either destroyed before they have reached the time for whelping, or the 
destructive work has then so far advanced that they die in labor or shortly after 
it has been completed. 
The primary cause of this septicemia is, without doubt, some form of microbe, 
which enters the blood and is conveyed to one or more fcetuses, which die; or 
it develops a virulent poison that is passed on to the uterus with the same dis- 
astrous effect therein. The foetus or foetuses destroyed decompose, and as a 
result there is putrid infection and blood poisoning, as in puerperal fever. 
This microbe, which is evidently the primary cause of septicemia of preg- 
nancy, obviously is not the same as that which is capable of producing puerperal 
fever. Where the latter occurs, infection enters by the way of the generative 
organs, and when they are properly protected that peculiar fever is impossible ; 
but in the former it would appear that the germs must invade the body by the 
way of the nose or mouth, then make their way into the blood, from which, as 
stated, they, or the toxin produced by them, are conveyed to the uterus, on the 
contents of which their force is inflicted. 
Appreciable signs that something is wrong, and which may suggest this 
septicemia, are not as a rule manifested until two or thee days before the vic- 
tims are due to whelp, although in occasional instances they have been noted a 
week, and even nine days, in advance of that eventful period. On the other 
hand, in some cases whelping has commenced before the occurrence of symptoms 
that excited suspicion or apprehension. 
