It is true that some of the historians of the disease, especially Hulme, Hull, and Leake, in England; Tonnelle, Duges, and Baudelocque, in France, profess not to have found puerperal fever contagious.  At the most they give us mere negative facts, worthless against an extent of evidence which now overlaps the widest range of doubt, and doubles upon itself in the redundancy of superfluous demonstration.  Examined in detail, this and much of the show of testimony brought up to stare the daylight of conviction out of countenance, proves to be in a great measure unmeaning and inapplicable, as might be easily shown were it necessary.  Nor do I feel the necessity of enforcing the conclusion which arises spontaneously from the facts which have been enumerated by formally citing the opinions of those grave authorities who have for the last half-century been sounding the unwelcome truth it has cost so many lives to establish.

“It is to the British practitioner,” says Dr. Rigby, “that we are indebted for strongly insisting upon this important and dangerous character of puerperal fever.” [Footnote:  British and Foreign Med.  Rev. for January, 1842.]

The names of Gordon, John Clarke, Denman, Burns, Young, [Footnote:  Encyc.  Britannica, xiii, 467, art., “Medicine.”] Hamilton,[Footnote:  Outlines of Midwifery, p. 109.] Haighton, [Footnote:  Oral Lectures, etc.] Good, [Footnote:  Study of Medicine, ii, 195.] Waller, [Footnote:  Medical and Physical Journal, July, 1830.] Blundell, Gooch, Ramsbotham, Douglas, [Footnote:  Dublin Hospital Reports for 1822.] Lee, Ingleby, Locock, [Footnote:  Library of Practical Medicine, I. 373], Abercrombie [Footnote:  Researches on Diseases of the Stomach, etc. p. 1841], Alison [Footnote:  Library of Practical Medicine, i, 95.], Travers, [Footnote:  Further Researches on Constitutional Irritation, p. 128], Rigby, and Watson [Footnote:  London Medical Gazette, February, 1842] many of whose writings I have already referred to, may have some influence with those who prefer the weight of authorities to the simple deductions of their own reason from the facts aid before them.  A few Continental writers have adopted similar conclusions [Footnote:  See British and Foreign Medical Review, vol. iil, p. 525, and vol. iv, p. 517.  Also Ed. Med. and Surg.  Journal for July 1824, and American Journal of Med.  Sciences for January, 1841.] It gives me pleasure to remember that, while the doctrine has been unceremoniously discredited in one of the leading journals [Footnote:  PIsid.  Med.  Journal, vol. xii, p. 364], and made very light of by teachers in two of the principal medical schools of this country, Dr. Channing has for many years inculcated, and enforced by examples, the danger to be apprehended and the precautions to be taken in the disease under consideration.