hile the scores
that cross the same paths on the same errands know it only by name. It
is a series of similar coincidences which has led us to consider the
dagger, the musket, and certain innocent-looking white powders as having
some little claim to be regarded as dangerous. It is the practical
inattention to similar coincidences which has given rise to the
unpleasant but often necessary documents called indictments, which has
sharpened a form of the cephalotome sometimes employed in the case of
adults, and adjusted that modification of the fillet which delivers the
world of those who happen to be too much in the way while such striking
coincidences are taking place.

I shall now mention a few instances in which the disease appears to have
been conveyed by the process of direct inoculation.

Dr. Campbell of Edinburgh states that in October, 1821, he assisted at
the post-mortem examination of a patient who died with puerperal fever.
He carried the pelvic viscera in his pocket to the class-room. The same
evening he attended a woman in labor without previously changing his
clothes; this patient died. The next morning he delivered a woman with
the forceps; she died also, and of many others who were seized with the
disease within a few weeks, three shared the same fate in succession.

In June, 1823, he assisted some of his pupils at the autopsy of a case of
puerperal fever. He was unable to wash his hands with proper care, for
want of the necessary accommodations. On getting home he found that two
patients required his assistance. He went without further ablution, or
changing his clothes; both these patients died with puerperal fever.
This same Dr. Campbell is one of Dr. Churchill's authorities against
contagion.

Mr. Roberton says that in one instance within his knowledge a
practitioner passed the catheter for a patient with puerperal fever late
in the evening; the same night he attended a lady who had the symptoms of
the disease on the second day. In another instance a surgeon was called
while in the act of inspecting the body of a woman who had died of this
fever, to attend a labor; within forty-eight hours this patient was
seized with the fever.'

On the 16th of March, 1831, a medical practitioner examined the body of a
woman who had died a few days after delivery, from puerperal peritonitis.
On the evening of the 17th he delivered a patient, who was seized with
puerperal fever on the 19th, and died on the 24th. Bet