Puerperal infection considered from a bacteriological point of view : with special reference to the question of auto-infection / by J. Whitridge Williams.

  • Williams, J. Whitridge (John Whitridge), 1866-1931.
Date:
1893
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Puerperal infection considered from a bacteriological point of view : with special reference to the question of auto-infection / by J. Whitridge Williams. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    PUERPERAL INFECTION CONSIDERED FROM A BACTERIO- LOGICAL POINT OF VIEW, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE QUESTION OF AUTO-INFECTION.1 (From the Pathological Laboratory of the Johns TIopkins University and Hospital.) lo Ignaz Semmel weiss is due the credit for having rescued the puer- peral diseases from the realm of hypothesis and theory, and for demon- strating that in the vast majority of cases they are due to infection from without, and thus placing them, to a greater or less degree, within the category of preventable affections. His great services were not at first appreciated, and not until the introduction of antiseptic methods into surgery did they receive the attention which they merited. With the advances in anti- and a-septic surgery, however, it was found that his views were based upon sound observation and were entitled to the greatest possible consideration ; so that now he is justly regarded as the father of antiseptic midwifery, and his name will go down with that of Lister as one of the great benefac- tors of mankind. At present, so great is the admiration in which he is held that steps have recently been taken to raise an international fund for building a monument in his honor in Budapest, his birthplace. With the advances in bacteriology, and the increasing knowledge of the relations which micro-organisms bear to suppuration and septic dis- turbances, it has gradually been established that the puerpeal affections do not represent a class of diseases sui generis, but are identical with the affections which follow the infection of wounds in other parts of the body, and are due to the same micro-organisms ; in other words, puerperal infection is wound infection. By a long series of observations it has gradually been established that most of the fatal cases of puerperal disease have been due to infection with the streptococcus pyogenes. Before the employment of cultural methods for isolating micro-organisms various observers found chains of micrococci in the tissues of various organs of women dead of puerperal fever. Mayrhofer,35 in 1865, was the first to publish such an observa- By J. Whitridge AVilliams, M.D., ASSOCIATE IN OBSTETRICS, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY, 1 Read before the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland, April, 1S93.