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127
PUERPERAL FEVER.
Under Puerperal Fever are included the deaths from Pyaemia
and Septicæmia occurring in lying-in women. Two cases were
notified during the year. Friends and relations are sometimes
found to be acting in the capacity of midwives, and thus the value
of the Midwives' Act, which was passed to reduce the dangers
from the practice of midwifery by unqualified persons, is materially
reduced.
It is satisfactory to note that the mortality among puerperal
women, both from puerperal sepsis and from accidents at childbirth,
is steadily decreasing.
The death-rate, as expressed as a rate per 1,000 registered
births, was 1.9, as compared with 2.7 for the preceding year.
PHTHISIS (CONSUMPTION) AND OTHER FORMS OF
TUBERCULOSIS.
118 cases of Consumption were notified under the Public
Health (Tuberculosis) Regulations, 1912.
A few facts may be worthy of record in connection with the
cases notified during the year. There was certainly no family
history of Consumption in 52 of the cases investigated; and it
seems probable that the history was negative in some other
instances. There were, therefore, about 44 per cent. of the total
cases notified whose family history furnished no instance of the
disease. The parental history was often in other cases suggestive
of Phthisis, although one was informed that the death of the
father or mother was attributed to Bronchitis or some other
Pulmonary complaint. Excluding such doubtful cases of parental
history of the disease, it was found that in 10 cases the father
or mother (and in 3 cases both) had either died, or were suffering
from Consumption at the time of the inquiry; and that in 10
other cases there was a history of Consumption in the brothers
or sisters of the parents. Where the parents themselves had