In the view of these facts it does appear a singular coincidence that one man or woman should have ten, twenty, thirty, or seventy cases of this rare disease following his or her footsteps with the keenness of a beagle, through the streets and lanes of a crowded city, while the scores that cross the same paths on the same errands know it only by name.  It is a series of similar coincidences which has led us to consider the dagger, the musket, and certain innocent-looking white powders as having some little claim to be regarded as dangerous.  It is the practical inattention to similar coincidences which has given rise to the unpleasant but often necessary documents called indictments, which has sharpened a form of the cephalotome sometimes employed in the case of adults, and adjusted that modification of the fillet which delivers the world of those who happen to be too much in the way while such striking coincidences are taking place.

I shall now mention a few instances in which the disease appears to have been conveyed by the process of direct inoculation.

Dr. Campbell, of Edinburgh, states that in October, 1821, he assisted at the post-mortem examination of a patient who died with puerperal fever.  He carried the pelvic viscera in his pocket to the class-room.  The same evening he attended a woman in labor without previously changing his clothes; this patient died.  The next morning he delivered a woman with the forceps; she died also, and of many others who were seized with the disease within a few weeks, three shared the same fate in succession.

In June, 1823, he assisted some of his pupils at the autopsy of a case of puerperal fever.  He was unable to wash his hands with proper care, for want of the necessary accommodations.  On getting home he found that two patients required his assistance.  He went without further ablution or changing his clothes; both these patients died with puerperal fever. [Footnote:  Lond.  Med.  Gazette, December 10, 1831.] This same Dr. Campbell is one of Dr. Churchill’s authorities against contagion.

Mr. Roberton says that in one instance within his knowledge a practitioner passed the catheter for a patient with puerperal fever late in the evening; the same night he attended a lady who had the symptoms of the disease on the second day.  In another instance a surgeon was called while in the act of inspecting the body of a woman who had died of this fever, to attend a labor; within forty-eight hours this patient was seized with the fever [Footnote:  Ibid. for January 1832].

On the 16th of March, 1831, a medical practitioner examined the body of a woman who had died a few days after delivery, from puerperal peritonitis.  On the evening of the 17th he delivered a patient, who was seized with puerperal fever on the 19th, and died on the 24th.  Between this period and the 6th of April the same practitioner attended two other patients, both of whom were attacked with the same disease and died. [Footnote:  London Cyc. of Pract.  Med., art., “Fever, Puerperal.”]