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51
In the two first cases the patients recovered, but in the third
case the patient died of Puerperal Septicaemia 14 days after the
birth of her child.
The particulars of the last case are as follows: The patient,
an Italian, was delivered of her second child on the 2nd January,
1907, by Mrs. T., an ignorant Italian woman who attends her
compatriots as a midwife. Mrs. T. had previously attended
an Italian woman in Islington, who had developed and died of
Septicaemia on the 7th January, 1907, and she had taken no
precautions with regard to personal disinfection or disinfection of
apparatus before coming to the case in Finsbury.
This midwife does not understand English, and is unacquainted
with the rules regulating the practice of midwives as well as
being too profoundly ignorant to comply with them. We have
evidence that in July she attended a patient in Holborn who
developed Puerperal Fever and died, so that within seven months*
three deaths have followed in the wake of this person. Not
being on the register and not advertising herself as a midwife,
the London County Council have no power to deal with her. It
is fortunate that in 1910, when the whole of the Midwives Act
comes into force, such persons will be forbidden to practice.
CEREBRO-SPINAL FEVER.
During the year we have had intimated to us four cases of Cerebrospinal
meningitis ("spotted fever"), of which it is necessary to record
the particulars.
(1.) On February 9th, we received an intimation from Dr. Gray, the
Resident Medical Officer at Great Ormond Street Hospital, of a case of
cerebro-spinal meningitis (so called "spotted fever"), in the person of a
child, J. D., aged seven months, of 39, Warren Street, Pentonville, N.
*Mrs. F. B. 44, Warner Street, died 12/7/07, of Puerperal Fever,
attended by Mrs. T. Information from Holborn Borough Council.