Pelvic cellulitis is oftener found in childbirth, premature labor and abortion, for the reason that it is a wound infection, and the female organism, is always more or less wounded under these circumstances. In confinement the cervix is always more or less torn, and septic matter deposited there often speedily spreads along the lymphatics and veins to the pelvic cellular tissue, in fact, the entire uterine surface forms a suitable soil for bacterial growth. The vagina is also more or less injured or bruised through parturient efforts; this may be in the nature of a laceration or an abrasion of its mucous surface. Outside of the above causes, the infection may be of traumatic origin, the most common causes being operative measures on the vagina or womb of a cutting, scraping or stitching nature, that were not carried out under strictly antiseptic precautions, guaranteeing the exclusion of septic germs. Dilation of the cervix with sponge tents or with instruments or probes that were not perfectly cleansed, causes infection and a decomposition of the retained secretions, which, becoming absorbed, leads to pelvic cellulitis. In surgical operations and puerperal conditions in which infection has been positively excluded, by careful antiseptic measures, pelvic cellulitis is impossible. The inflammation in this disease is excited by the irritating influences of products of septic decomposition; these may have been introduced into the system at the time of confinement or of an operation, or they may have been in the vaginal tract before the operations were commenced. This teaches an important lesson, which few seem to have learned; it is this, that _the strictest antiseptic regulations in a confinement or operation are of no avail, if the patient herself is not first thoroughly disinfected before the operation begins_. In the German Empire there is a legal provision giving full instructions for the necessary disinfection of the lying-in woman and her attendant; if there were such a wise provision in this country, we would not hear of so many deaths of women in childbed, from blood poisoning. At the Copenhagen International Medical Congress (1884), Professor Esmarch, one of the most celebrated of German surgeons, said that “humanity demands antiseptic treatment of wounds and wounded.” I believe that the time will soon come that antiseptic regulations in the treatment of diseases will not only be compulsory, but that a neglect of the same, causing death by blood poisoning, will make the attendant liable for exemplary damages.