Puerperal Sepsis

Abstract

Much information is available in the historical review of Fleetwood Churchill (1850). The first undoubted epidemic of puerperal fever occurred in Paris in the winter of 1746. Other epidemics appeared in Paris and Lyons. Twenty-four women died of it in 1760. Other epidemics appeared in 1830–1831, one midwife having 16 puerperal deaths among 30 patients. No such deaths occurred in the practices of other midwives at the same institution. Other incidents are reported. Churchill remarks on another series of cases, “post hoc is not always propter hoc” for puerperal fever was epidemic in Edinburgh in 1821–1822, a reference to the Galenic doctrine (see §8.2).