PATHOLOGY AND TREATMENT OE PARTURIENT FEVER. 
505 
referred to in the beginning of this article. If we watch a case 
of pyaemia develop in a wound, do not the first changes take 
place in the wound itself ? First it ceases to granulate, and as¬ 
sumes a livid, unhealthy aspect, discharging a dark, unhealthy 
pus; this preceeds blood infection several days; but we know 
what to expect; we know the fatal and terrible chill is not far 
off. Surely all this proves fairly that the primary cause is local, 
and if this be an isolated case it must have been atmospheric. 
Recent discoveries of bacteriae in decaying animal matter, and 
the blood itself, and the presence of cryptogams in the blood 
and urine of persons subject to malarious poison, fairly prove the 
truth of the germ theory of disease. The antiseptic treatment 
of Lister and other great surgeons prove also the truth of this 
theory. We have no doubt, could the interior of the uterus be 
treated perfectly after delivery, the antiseptic dressing in the 
form of spray or injection, we would have much less of the so- 
called parturient fever. When we know how readily the healthy 
mucous surface takes on the virus of syphilis, how often it is im¬ 
parted to the lips and mouth by kissing, by pipe-stems, wind 
instruments, etc., how much more readily will the intra-uterine 
surface after delivery, denuded by its epithelium, by its slough¬ 
ing decidua, take on, or rather transmit to the blood bacteria, 
cryptogams, etc. 
In regard to treatment, we can hardly disagree. Peritonitis 
claims opium in large doses; septicaemia, antiseptics, salicylic 
acid, chinin, etc.; pyaemia the same, with addition of chloro¬ 
form. But better than all is prevention. First let no man who 
has come in contact with such a case go forth a walking pesti¬ 
lence, spreading ruin about him; time and disinfection will 
remedy this. We have all heard of the unfortunate Philadel¬ 
phia physician who, suffering from an ozaena, no doubt malig¬ 
nant, destroyed every woman whom he delivered, the index- 
finger of his right hand conveying death from his nose to the 
genitalia of his patients. And the case of Dr. Arnette, of 
Vienna, when a parturient female with cancer of the cervix was 
admitted into the lying-in ward, and examined by scores of 
students, who infected fourteen lying-in women, three of whom 
