mong the earlier special works upon the disease. Apart of
his testimony has been occasionally copied into other works, but his
expressions are so clear, his experience is given with such manly
distinctness and disinterested honesty, that it may be quoted as a model
which might have been often followed with advantage.

"This disease seized such women only as were visited, or delivered by a
practitioner, or taken care of by a nurse, who had previously attended
patients affected with the disease."

"I had evident proofs of its infectious nature, and that the infection
was as readily communicated as that of the small-pox or measles,
and operated more speedily than any other infection with which I am
acquainted."

"I had evident proofs that every person who had been with a patient
in the puerperal fever became charged with an atmosphere of infection,
which was communicated to every pregnant woman who happened to come
within its sphere. This is not an assertion, but a fact, admitting
of demonstration, as may be seen by a perusal of the foregoing
table,"--referring to a table of seventy-seven cases, in many of which
the channel of propagation was evident.

He adds, "It is a disagreeable declaration for me to mention, that I
myself was the means of carrying the infection to a great number of
women." He then enumerates a number of instances in which the disease
was conveyed by midwives and others to the neighboring villages, and
declares that "these facts fully prove that the cause of the puerperal
fever, of which I treat, was a specific contagion, or infection,
altogether unconnected with a noxious constitution of the atmosphere."

But his most terrible evidence is given in these words: "I ARRIVED AT
THAT CERTAINTY IN THE MATTER, THAT I COULD VENTURE TO FORETELL WHAT
WOMEN WOULD BE AFFECTED WITH THE DISEASE, UPON HEARING BY WHAT MIDWIFE
THEY WERE TO BE DELIVERED, OR BY WHAT NURSE THEY WERE TO BE ATTENDED,
DURING THEIR LYING-IN: AND ALMOST IN EVERY INSTANCE, MY PREDICTION WAS
VERIFIED."

Even previously to Gordon, Mr. White of Manchester had said, "I am
acquainted with two gentlemen in another town, where the whole business
of midwifery is divided betwixt them, and it is very remarkable that one
of them loses several patients every year of the puerperal fever, and
the other never so much as meets with the disorder,"--a difference
which he seems to attribute to their various modes of treatment. [On the
Management of Lying-