Page:Blackwell 1898 Scientific method in biology.pdf/35

Rh shock in necessary surgical operations ; the disappearance of blood-poisoning, hospital gangrene, and erysipelas, which were the scourges of our public institutions in a former generation, are immense gains, due to the discovery of anæsthetics, antiseptics, and advancing sanitation. These blessings are the direct outcome of persevering and skilful clinical observation, of careful work in the laboratory, of humane experiment, and of happy accident; they are not derived from cruel experimentation.

The successful control of that terrible disease—puerperal fever—which formerly destroyed such a multitude of women, is a striking conquest of humane method in modern medicine. When I was a student in La Maternité of Paris in 1849, this destructive malady of lying-in women produced a mortality varying from 10 to 15 per cent. But when I visited La Maternité in 1889 the mortality was reduced to a little over 1 per cent. This was due to rigorous cleanliness, sanitation, and the use of antiseptics, directed by the skilful sage femme en chef Madame Henri, in