word can be found in the chapter devoted to this disease which
would lead the reader to suspect that the idea of contagion had
ever been entertained. It seems proper, therefore, to remind
those who are in the habit of referring to the works for guidance
that there may possibly be some sources of danger they have
slighted or omitted, quite as important as a trifling
irregularity of diet, or a confined state of the bowels, and that
whatever confidence a physician may have in his own mode of
treatment, his services are of questionable value whenever he
carries the bane as well as the antidote about his person.

The practical point to be illustrated is the following: THE
DISEASE KNOWN AS PUERPERAL FEVER IS SO FAR CONTAGIOUS AS TO BE
FREQUENTLY CARRIED FROM PATIENT TO PATIENT BY PHYSICIANS AND
NURSES.

Let me begin by throwing out certain incidental questions, which,
without being absolutely essential, would render the subject more
complicated, and by making such concessions and assumptions as
may be fairly supposed to be without the pale of discussion.

1. It is granted that all the forms of what is called puerperal
fever may not be, and probably are not, equally contagious or
infectious. I do not enter into the distinctions which have been
drawn by authors, because the facts do not appear to me
sufficient to establish any absolute line of demarcation between
such forms as may be propagated by contagion and those which are
never so propagated. This general result I shall only support by
the authority of Dr. Ramsbotham, who gives, as the result of his
experience, that the same symptoms belong to what he calls the