Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/829

Rh Thirty years ago the mortality from puerperal septiæemia in lying-in hospitals was frequently something frightful. In the Maison d'Accouchements in Paris the mortality rate at times was as high as one out of every three patients delivered. Similar conditions existed in Berlin and in other European cities. At the present day the mortality from septic infection in similar cases is even less than in private practice. In the Maternity Hospital of New York, for example, in one thousand deliveries there were but six deaths, and but one of these was due to puerperal septicæmia.

If we take a more general view of the results attained in preventive medicine by the application of modern methods based upon our knowledge of the causes of infectious diseases, we shall find that a very large saving of life has been accomplished, as shown by diminished mortality rates in all parts of the civilized world. This is well illustrated by the carefully kept English statistics. The facts are very concisely stated by Sir Edwin Arnold in an address recently delivered at St. Thomas's Hospital upon Medicine, its Past and Future. He says:

"One of the high authorities already quoted has furnished a calculation of the salvage of life effected, even during the early years of the present reign, by the commencing improvements in preventive and curative medicine. In the five years from 1838 to 1842 London, with an average population of 1,840,865 persons, had an average annual mortality of 2,557 in every 100,000. In the five years from 1880 to 1884 the average metropolitan population was 3,894,261, and the average annual death-rate 2,101 in each 100,000. A calculation will show that these figures represent a saving or prolonging of lives during that lustrum to the number of 96,640. The mean annual death-rate has now been reduced to a point lower than shown in these. It was 22·16 per 1,000 for England and Wales at the commencement of the reign, and it is to-day better than 19·0 per thousand, while in her Majesty's army and navy the diminution of mortality apart from deaths from warfare has proved even more remarkable, and in India, where we used to lose 69 per 1,000 yearly, this has been reduced to 16 per 1,000."

We can not claim that this reduction in the mortality rate is due alone to the development of our knowledge relating to the pathogenic bacteria, for much had been accomplished by practical measures of sanitation before we had any exact knowledge of disease germs. But this exact knowledge has added greatly to our sanitary resources, and has doubtless been an important factor in the reduction in the mortality rate which has occurred within the past twenty-five years. Sir Edwin Arnold, in the address above referred to, says:

"A great authority has declared that 'a day will come when