ABSTRACT
It is probable that in human history non-specific infections, following on wounds, injuries, and parturition, have destroyed more lives than the infectious diseases which are presumably or certainly caused by specific microorganisms. This chapter sketches a remarkable anticipation of Lister's methods in the care of parturition. For ages the care of women in childbirth was undertaken chiefly by women neighbours or midwives, whose only competence was that derived from the mistakes of experience. The history of enlightenment as to puerperal sepsis is instructive, so slowly in the past have exact observation and careful inferences from facts been accepted by generations of physicians who were obsessed by fixed dogmas. Four names are specially worthy of remembrance, White of Manchester, Gordon of Aberdeen, Oliver Wendell Holmes of Boston, and Iignatz Philipp Semmelweis. This chapter shows that the absorption of matter is the immediate cause of the puerperal fever, as well as that consequent upon abscesses and ulcers.
