A practical treatise on midwifery, containing the results of 16,654 births occurring in the Dublin Lying-in Hospital, during a period of seven years commencing November 1826 / by Robert Collins.

Collins, Robert, 1801-1868.

Date:: 1835

Credit: A practical treatise on midwifery, containing the results of 16,654 births occurring in the Dublin Lying-in Hospital, during a period of seven years commencing November 1826 / by Robert Collins. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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$cessity of paying that attention to ventilation to which it is so preeminently entitled. We may further observe, had the mortality from the period at which the Hospital was opened been in the proportion of one in .58i, as during the last seven t/ears, the deaths would not have amounted to one half even of the reduced number, 5,500 as above stated, and thus the number of lives saved would have been more than doubled. I have but little doubt that bv strict adherence to free ventilntioriy in conjunction with extreme mgdance as to cleanliness, so as to entirely destroy and prevent an accumulation of foul or heated air in the wards, this frightful disease may be nearly banished from Lying-in Hospitals. The means of effecting this, as adopted with singular benefit, will be found in the Observations on l^uerperal Fever, which see page 380. During my seven years’ MiLstership there were only 37 cases of trismus; of these 14 occurred the frst year, 7 the second, 3 the third, 3 the fourth, 3 the ffth, 3 the sixth, and 4 the seventh year. The diminution in the number attacked after the second year, is explained by the additional steps taken to free the wards from impure air. ^\Ten the very great number of children born in the Hospital is considered, the jirojiortion of deaths from this disease during the above ])erio<l is ineon-$