e by the raising of the question which
produced this Essay. For I have abundant evidence that it has made many
practitioners more cautious in their relations with puerperal females,
and I have no doubt it will do so still, if it has a chance of being
read, though it should call out a hundred counterblasts, proving to the
satisfaction of their authors that it proved nothing. And for my part, I
had rather rescue one mother from being poisoned by her attendant, than
claim to have saved forty out of fifty patients to whom I had carried the
disease. Thus, I am willing to avail myself of any hint coming from
without to offer this paper once more to the press. The occasion has
presented itself, as will be seen, in a convenient if not in a flattering
form.

I send this Essay again to the MEDICAL PROFESSION, without the change of
a word or syllable. I find, on reviewing it, that it anticipates and
eliminates those secondary questions which cannot be entertained for a
moment until the one great point of fact is peremptorily settled. In its
very statement of the doctrine maintained it avoids all discussion of the
nature of the disease "known as puerperal fever," and all the somewhat
stale philology of the word contagion. It mentions, fairly enough, the
names of sceptics, or unbelievers as to the reality of personal
transmission; of Dewees, of Tonnelle, of Duges, of Baudelocque, and
others; of course, not including those whose works were then unwritten or
unpublished; nor enumerating all the Continental writers who, in
ignorance of the great mass of evidence accumulated by British
practitioners, could hardly be called well informed on this subject. It
meets all the array of negative cases,--those in which disease did not
follow exposure,--by the striking example of small-pox, which, although
one of the most contagious of diseases, is subject to the most remarkable
irregularities and seeming caprices in its transmission. It makes full
allowance for other causes besides personal transmission, especially for
epidemic influences. It allows for the possibility of different modes of
conveyance of the destructive principle. It recognizes and supports the
belief that a series of cases may originate from a single primitive
source which affects each new patient in turn; and especially from cases
of Erysipelas. It does not undertake to discuss the theoretical aspect
of the subject; that is a secondary matter of consideration. Where facts
are