equally communicable to women not pregnant; on more than one
occasion the women engaged in washing the soiled bed-linen of the General
Lying-in Hospital have been attacked with abscess in the fingers or
hands, attended with rapidly spreading inflammation of the cellular
tissue."

Now add to all this the undisputed fact, that within the walls of
lying-in hospitals there is often generated a miasm, palpable as the
chlorine used to destroy it, tenacious so as in some cases almost to defy
extirpation, deadly in some institutions as the plague; which has killed
women in a private hospital of London so fast that they were buried two
in one coffin to conceal its horrors; which enabled Tonnelle to record
two hundred and twenty-two autopsies at the Maternite of Paris; which has
led Dr. Lee to express his deliberate conviction that the loss of life
occasioned by these institutions completely defeats the objects of their
founders; and out of this train of cumulative evidence, the multiplied
groups of cases clustering about individuals, the deadly results of
autopsies, the inoculation by fluids from the living patient, the
murderous poison of hospitals,--does there not result a conclusion that
laughs all sophistry to scorn, and renders all argument an insult?

I have had occasion to mention some instances in which there was an
apparent relation between puerperal fever and erysipelas. The length to
which this paper has extended does not allow me to enter into the
consideration of this most important subject. I will only say, that the
evidence appears to me altogether satisfactory that some most fatal
series of puerperal fever have been produced by an infection originating
in the matter or effluvia of erysipelas. In evidence of some connection
between the two diseases, I need not go back to the older authors, as
Pouteau or Gordon, but will content myself with giving the following
references, with their dates; from which it will be seen that the
testimony has been constantly coming before the profession for the last
few years.

"London Cyclopaedia of Practical Medicine," article Puerperal Fever,
1833.

Mr. Ceeley's Account of the Puerperal Fever at Aylesbury. "Lancet,"
1835.

Dr. Ramsbotham's Lecture. "London Medical Gazette," 1835.

Mr. Yates Ackerly's Letter in the same Journal, 1838.

Mr. Ingleby on Epidemic Puerperal Fever. "Edinburgh Medical and Surgical
Journal," 1838.

Mr. Paley's Letter. "London Medical Gazette," 18