does not always manifest itself as
erysipelas when thus carried, however, and the merit of Dr. Holmes's
work was in pointing out the fact that physicians who attended
patients suffering from erysipelas and then waited on obstetrical
cases, were especially likely to carry the affection, which manifested
itself as puerperal fever. A number of cases of this kind were
reported and discussed by him, and there is no doubt that his warning
served to save many precious lives.

Of course nothing of this was known in the thirteenth century; yet the
encouragement given to this religious order which devoted itself
practically exclusively to the care in special hospitals of
erysipelas, must have had no little effect in bringing about a
limitation of the spread of the disease. In such hospitals patients
were not likely to come in contact with many persons, and consequently
the contagion-radius of the disease was limited. In our own time,
immediate segregation of cases when discovered has practically
eradicated it, so that many a young physician, even though ten years
in practice, has never seen a case of it. It was so common during the
Civil War and for half a century before that here in America, that
there were frequent epidemics of it in hospitals, and it was generally
recognized that the disease was so contagious, that when it once
gained a foothold in a hospital ward nearly every patient suffering
from an open wound was likely to be affected by it.

It is interesting then to learn that these people of the {278} Middle
Ages attempted to control the disease by erecting special hospitals
for it, though unfortunately we are not in a position to know just how
much was accomplished by these means. A congregation devoted to the
special care of the disease had been organized, as we have said, early
in the thirteenth century. At the end of this century this was given
the full weight of his amplest approval by Pope Boniface VIII., who
conferred on it the privilege of having priests among its members It
will be remembered that Pope Boniface VIII. is said to have issued the
bull which forbade the practice of dissection. That bull only
regulated, as I have shown, the abuse which had sprung up of
dismembering bodies and boiling them in order to be able to carry them
to a distance for burial, which was in itself an excellent hygienic
measure. His encouragement of the special religious order for the care
of erysipelas must be set down to his c