Puerperal Fever

that difficulty, the more is one bothered and perplexed. I will, however, before I have done, endeavour to describe a disease which, for some years, was rife in my practice, and in that of other practitioners in the locality in which I lived, leaving the reader to attach to it what designation he pleases?whether it be puerperal peritonitis, or metro-peritonitis, post-partum inflammation, post-partum fever, puerperal pyrexia, puerperal septicaemia, or the more general one with which I have headed the page, puerperal fever. During many long years of active practice I had but little time to devote to reading, and doubtless fell much behind, in my knowledge of the theories advanced by systematic writers as to the nature of childbed fever, and was inclined to regard puerperal peritonitis and puerperal fever as synonymous terms. I also held the view which was expressed by an eminent authority more than twenty years ago, that there existed a puerperal poison peculiarly affecting lying-in women, and producing "all the varied