II. THE CONTAGIOUSNESS OF PUERPERAL FEVER." THE POINT AT ISSUE. THE AFFIRMATIVE. "The disease known as Puerperal Fever is so far contagious as to be frequently carried from patient to patient by physicians and nurses." 0. W. Holmes, 1843. THE NEGATIVE. "The result of the whole discussion will, I trust, serve, not only to exalt your views of the value and dignity of our profession, but to divest your minds of the overpowering dread that you can ever become, especially to woman, under the extremely interesting circumstances of gestation and parturition, the minister of evil; that you can ever convey, in any possible manner, a horrible virus, so destructive in its effects, and so mysterious in its operations as that attributed to puerperal fever."— Professor Hodge, 1852. "I prefer to attribute them to accident, or Providence, of which I can form a conception, rather than to a contagion of which I cannot form any clear idea, at least as to this particular malady." - Professor Meigs, 1852. 66 in the propagation of which they have no more to do, than with the propagation of cholera from Jessore to San Francisco, and from Mauritius to St. Petersburg." - Professor Meigs, 1854. "I arrived at that certainty in the matter, that I could venture to foretell what women would be affected with the disease, upon hearing by what midwife they were to be delivered, or by what nurse they were to be attended, during their lying-in; and, almost in every instance, my prediction was verified." Gordon, 1795. a Printed in 1843; reprinted with additions, 1855. "A certain number of deaths is caused every year by the contagion of puerperal fever, communicated by the nurses and medical attendants." Farr, in Fifth Annual Report of Registrar-General of England, 1843. "... boards of health, if such exist, or, without them, the medical institutions of a country, should have the power of coercing, or of inflicting some kind of punishment on those who recklessly go from cases of puerperal fevers to parturient or puerperal females, without using due precaution; and who, having been shown the risk, criminally encounter it, and convey pestilence and death to the persons they are employed to aid in the most interesting and suffering period of female existence." Copland's Medical Dictionary, Art. Puerperal States and Diseases, 1852. "We conceive unnecessary to go into detail to prove the contagious nature of this disease, as there are few, if any, American practitioners who do not believe in this doctrine." - Dr. Lee, in Additions to Article last cited. [INTRODUCTORY NOTE.] It happened, some years ago, that a discussion arose in a Medical Society of which I was a member, involving the subject of a certain supposed cause of disease, about which something was known, a good deal suspected, and not a little feared. The discussion was suggested by a case, reported at the preceding meeting, of a physician who made an examination of the body of a patient who had died with puerperal fever, and who himself died in less than a week, apparently in consequence of a wound received at the examination, having attended several women in confinement in the mean time, all of whom, as it was alleged, were attacked with puerperal fever. Whatever apprehensions and beliefs were entertained, it was plain that a fuller knowledge of the facts relating to the subject would be acceptable to all present. I therefore felt that it would be doing a good service to look into the best records I could find, and inquire of the most trustworthy practitioners I |