le this case was in progress, whether he went directly from one
chamber to others, whether he took any, and what precautions. It is
important to know that several women were exposed to infection derived
from the patient, so that allowance may be made for want of
predisposition. Now if of negative facts so sifted there could be
accumulated a hundred for every one plain instance of communication here
recorded, I trust it need not be said that we are bound to guard and
watch over the hundredth tenant of our fold, though the ninety and nine
may be sure of escaping the wolf at its entrance. If any one is
disposed, then, to take a hundred instances of lives endangered or
sacrificed out of those I have mentioned, and make it reasonably clear
that within a similar time and compass ten thousand escaped the same
exposure, I shall thank him for his industry, but I must be permitted to
hold to my own practical conclusions, and beg him to adopt or at least to
examine them also. Children that walk in calico before open fires are not
always burned to death; the instances to the contrary may be worth
recording; but by no means if they are to be used as arguments against
woollen frocks and high fenders.

I am not sure that this paper will escape another remark which it might
be wished were founded in justice. It may be said that the facts are too
generally known and acknowledged to require any formal argument or
exposition, that there is nothing new in the positions advanced, and no
need of laying additional statements before the Profession. But on
turning to two works, one almost universally, and the other extensively
appealed to as authority in this country, I see ample reason to overlook
this objection. In the last edition of Dewees's Treatise on the
"Diseases of Females," it is expressly said, "In this country, under no
circumstance that puerperal fever has appeared hitherto, does it afford
the slightest ground for the belief that it is contagious." In the
"Philadelphia Practice of Midwifery" not one 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 these
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
wha