rson who had been with a patient in
the puerperal fever became charged with an atmosphere of infection, which
was communicated to every pregnant woman who happened to come within its
sphere. This is not an assertion, but a fact, admitting of
demonstration, as may be seen by a perusal of the foregoing
table,"--referring to a table of seventy-seven cases, in many of which
the channel of propagation was evident.

He adds, "It is a disagreeable declaration for me to mention, that I
myself was the means of carrying the infection to a great number of
women." He then enumerates a number of instances in which the disease
was conveyed by midwives and others to the neighboring villages, and
declares that "these facts fully prove that the cause of the puerperal
fever, of which I treat, was a specific contagion, or infection,
altogether unconnected with a noxious constitution of the atmosphere."

But his most terrible evidence is given in these words: "I ARRIVED AT
THAT CERTAINTY IN THE MATTER, THAT I COULD VENTURE TO FORETELL WHAT WOMEN
WOULD BE AFFECTED WITH THE DISEASE, UPON HEARING BY WHAT MIDWIFE THEY
WERE TO BE DELIVERED, OR BY WHAT NURSE THEY WERE TO BE ATTENDED, DURING
THEIR LYING-IN: AND ALMOST IN EVERY INSTANCE, MY PREDICTION WAS
VERIFIED."

Even previously to Gordon, Mr. White of Manchester had said, "I am
acquainted with two gentlemen in another town, where the whole business
of midwifery is divided betwixt them, and it is very remarkable that one
of them loses several patients every year of the puerperal fever, and the
other never so much as meets with the disorder,"--a difference which he
seems to attribute to their various modes of treatment. [On the
Management of Lying-in Women, p. 120.]

Dr. Armstrong has given a number of instances in his Essay on Puerperal
Fever, of the prevalence of the disease among the patients of a single
practitioner. At Sunderland, "in all, forty-three cases occurred from
the 1st of January to the 1st of October, when the disease ceased; and of
this number forty were witnessed by Mr. Gregson and his assistant, Mr.
Gregory, the remainder having been separately seen by three accoucheurs."
There is appended to the London edition of this Essay, a letter from Mr.
Gregson, in which that gentleman says, in reference to the great number
of cases occurring in his practice, "The cause of this I cannot pretend
fully to explain, but I should be wanting in common liberality if I were
to make any hes