View report page

54
Puerperal Fever was the registered cause of 5 deaths, of
women between 15 and 45 years of age (as compared with 3,
7, and 5, in the preceding three years respectively), four of
them in the Town sub-district. In addition to these 5 deaths,
other 6 deaths (five of them in the Town sub-district) were
registered as having occurred in childbed, as compared with
8, 13, and 9, in the preceding three years respectively. The
deaths registered as having been caused by diseases and
accidents associated with parturition (11 in all) were equal to
3'0 per 1,000 live births, against 2-5, 54, and 3'8, per 1,000 in
the preceding three years respectively. The notifications of
puerperal fever were 11 in number. Bearing in mind the
disatrous 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 1898 with satisfactory results, there having been no
spread of the disease.
Class II.—Parasitic Diseases.
There was no death from the diseases in this Order.
Class III.—Dietetic Diseases.
The deaths from the diseases in this Order were 25; 20 of
them in the Town sub-district. Delirium Tremens was
the cause of six deaths, as compared with 3, 4, and 4, in the
preceding three years respectively; Chronic Alcoholism of
eighteen deaths, against 8, 10, and 11. It is scarcely necessary,
perhaps, to remark that if al! the deaths due, directly or
indirectly, to the immoderate use of intoxicating liquors, could