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81
[1910
Puerperal Septic Diseases.—These diseases of course only occur among
women, and are due to infection during labour or after child-birth. They
include Puerperal Pyaemia, Septicaemia, Sapræmia, Septic Intoxication, and the
so-called Puerperal Fever, which is more or less a generic name for the whole.
During 1910 they were 8 in number, or one more than the corrected
average in the ten years 1900-1909. They were in the proportion of 9.7 to every
10,000 births, as contrasted with 10.3 in the preceding ten years.
The Medical Officer of Health has frequently discussed the cause of these
diseases. Sometimes they are accidental, but probably more frequently are
due to the want of care exercised by women during their lying-in.
Cases would probably be much rarer if women were properly instructed
before their lying-in as to the necessity that exists for them to
adopt precautions, especially in the direction of cleanliness in their bed and
the clothes they wear during their confinement. Health Visitors are proving
very useful in this direction.

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