Education, Medical -- Massachusetts -- 19th century; Homeopathy; Libraries, Medical -- Massachusetts -- 19th century; Medicine
Dr. Rutter, the practitioner referred to, “observed that, after the
occurrence of a number of cases of the disease in his practice, he
had left the city and remained absent for a week, but on returning, no
article of clothing he then wore having been used by him before, one
of the very first cases of parturition he attended was followed by
an attack of the fever, and terminated fatally; he cannot, readily,
therefore, believe in the transmission of the disease from female to
female, in the person or clothes of the physician.”
The meeting at which these remarks were made was held on the 3d of May,
1842. In a letter dated December 20, 1842, addressed to Dr. Meigs, and
to be found in the “Medical Examiner,” he speaks of “those horrible
cases of puerperal fever, some of which you did me the favor to see with
me during the past summer,” and talks of his experience in the disease,
“now numbering nearly seventy cases, all of which have occurred within
less than a twelvemonth past.”
And Dr. Meigs asserts, on the same page, “Indeed, I believe that his
practice in that department of the profession was greater than that
of any other gentleman, which was probably the cause of his seeing a
greater number of the cases.” This from a professor of midwifery, who
some time ago assured a gentleman whom he met in consultation, that the
night on which they met was the eighteenth in succession that he himself
had been summoned from his repose, seems hardly satisfactory.
I must call the attention of the inquirer most particularly to the
Quarterly Report above referred to, and the letters of Dr. Meigs and Dr.
Rutter, to be found in the “Medical Examiner.” Whatever impression they
may produce upon his mind, I trust they will at least convince him
that there is some reason for looking into this apparently uninviting
subject.
At a meeting of the College of Physicians just mentioned, Dr. Warrington
stated, that a few days after assisting at an autopsy of puerperal
peritonitis, in which he laded out the contents of the abdominal cavity
with his hands, he was called upon to deliver three women in rapid
succession. All of these women were attacked with different forms of
what is commonly called puerperal fever. Soon after these he saw two
other patients, both on the same day, with the same disease. Of these
five patients two died.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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