Oliver Wendell Holmes and the contagiousness of puerperal fever / by Charles J. Cullingworth.

  • Cullingworth, Charles J. (Charles James), 1841-1908.
Date:
1906
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Oliver Wendell Holmes and the contagiousness of puerperal fever / by Charles J. Cullingworth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and in a letter dated the 20th of December of the same year, Dr. Rutter speaks of having had a personal experience of nearly seventy of these “ horrible cases,” all of them within the past twelve-month. (See Medical Examiner, Philad., Jan. 21, 1843). The obstetric physician to whom this letter was addressed naively suggests that this experience of Dr. Rutter’s was in all probability due to the fact that the mid¬ wifery practice of the district was largely in his hands. At another meeting of the same College, “ Dr. Warrington stated that, a few days after assisting at an autopsy [in a case] of puerperal peritonitis in which he ladled out the contents of the abdominal cavity with his hands, he was called upon to deliver three women in rapid succession.” All were attacked with puerperal fever. Soon afterwards, “ he saw two other patients, both on the same day, with the same disease. Of these five patients, two died.” At the same meeting, Dr. West related that Dr. Samuel Jackson, whilst practising in Northumberland County (U.S.A.) attended, in rapid succession, seven women who were all attacked with puerperal fever and of whom five died. “ Women,” said Dr. Jackson, “ who had expected me to attend upon them, now becoming alarmed, removed out of my reach,” whilst others sent for a physician residing several miles off. “ These women, as well as those attended by midwives, all did well.” Only two other cases of death in childbed were known to have occurred during the same period within a radius of fifty miles, and both these deaths were afterwards ascertained to have been caused by other diseases. Dr. Jackson “ underwent, as he thought, a thorough puri¬ fication, and still his next patient was attacked with the disease and died. He was led to suspect that the contagion might have been carried in the gloves which he had worn in attendance upon the previous cases. Two months or more