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55
Puerperal Fever was the registered cause of 5 deaths, of
women between 15 and 45 years of age (as compared with 7,
5, and 5, in the three preceding years respectively), all of them
n the Town sub-district. In addition to these 5 deaths, other
4 deaths (all of them in the Town sub-district) were registered
as having occurred in childbed, as compared with 13, 9 and 6,
in the three preceding years respectively. The deaths registered
as having been caused by diseases and accidents associated
with parturition (9 in all) were equal to 25 per 1,000
live births, against 5 4, 3.8 and 3.0 per 1,000 in the three preceding
years respectively. The notifications of puerperal fever
were 11 in number. Bearing in mind the disastrous series of
cases of this disease on which I reported in 1883, when a
verdict of manslaughter was returned by a coroner's jury
against a midwife, under circumstances set out in the fourth
and sixth reports for that year, I have ever since felt it to be
my duty to warn nurses, and all other women concerned with
these painful cases, of the responsibility they incur by attending
other parturient women until after a period of three or four
weeks, and disinfection of their persons, clothing, &c. This
course was adopted in respect of the cases notified in 1899
with satisfactory results, there having been no spread of the
disease.
Class II.— Parasitic Diseases.
The deaths from the diseases in this Order were 7; 6 of
them in the Town sub-district. Thrush was the cause of 6
deaths, and Worms of one death.
Class III.— Dietetic Diseases.
The deaths from the diseases in this Order were 19: 17
of them in the Town sub-district. Delirium Tremens was the
cause of two deaths, as compared with 4, 4, and 6, in the three
preceding years respectively; Chronic Alcoholism of seventeen
deaths, against 10, 11, and 18. It is scarcely necessary,
perhaps, to remark that if all the deaths due, directly or