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175
this centre, but, as an approved centre, it receives the
Ministry's grant direct.
(o) Administration of the Public Health (Puerperal Fever
and Puerperal Pyrexia) Regulations, 1926. These regulations
came into force on the 1st October, 1926, and made notifiable,
in addition to puerperal fever, puerperal pyrexia, which
is defined as follows:-
"Any febrile condition (other than a condition
which is required to be notified as puerperal fever
under the Infectious Disease (Notification Acts)
occurring in women within 21 days after child-birth
or mis-carriage in which a temperature of 100-4 degrees
Fahrenheit (38 degrees Centigrade) or more has been
sustained during a period of 24 hours, or has recurred
during that period."
Their object is to ensure the organisation of proper
measures for the prompt and effective treatment of sepsis in
the puerperium. It was recognised that the number of notifications
would increase and would include many cases relatively
trivial in degree, but the great importance of securing adequate
treatment in the early stages of puerperal infection was
regarded as outweighing any objection to the notification of
a certain amount of minor illness which gives no cause for
anxiety. In his Annual Report on the State of the Public
Health in England for the year 1927, Sir George Newman,
the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health, makes
the following observation:—
"I desire to impress again the importance of notifying
all cases of puerperal pyrexia. It is true that the
pyrexia is not always of septic origin, but the only
safe rule is to regard the case as septic until the contrary
has been proved."