Course:History 344 Nasty Families/Diseases/Puerperal Fever

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Puerperal Fever, also known as childbed fever, is a disease which can occur to a mother after giving birth. Puerperal Fever involves extensive lacerations in the surface that exists in the vaginal wall or cervix uteri. [1] The disease is transmitted through these lacerations resulting in a bacterial infection of the mother’s genital tract after childbirth. There was a high rate for those who contracted the disease that it would prove fatal within five days. [2] “Childbirth was a very dangerous experience, for midwives were ignorant and ill-trained, and often horribly botched the job, while the lack of hygienic precautions meant that puerperal fever was a frequent sequel.” [3] The childbirth mortality rate was high but eventually became less and less as the centuries progressed. It was not easy to prevent or repair a lacerated surface in the vaginal wall or cervix uteri that was sustained during the course of labour. Ultimately, every stage of childbirth exposed women to physical discomfort and the possibility of death. [4]

The disease is documented early as the beginning of the sixteenth century. Some of the fevers most famous victim’s are two of Henry VIII’s wives, Jane Seymour and Katherine Parr; “Katherine’s fourth marriage was her last; she died in September, 1548, five days after giving birth to her only child.” [5] Puerperal fever was rampant and has been documented that up to 40 percent of admitted patience contracted the disease. [6]

Puerperal fever substantially affected the family. “The death of a mother in childbirth caused major difficulties for the surviving family members.” [7] If the infant survived the mother, “a wet nurse was needed in order to feed the infant—a huge expense.” [8] The family would be financially strapped to not only obtain a wet nurse but also there were no life insurance policies or day care centers to provide money or assistance with the newborn and any preexisting children. Ultimately “the financial disruption could be cataclysmic.” [9] (BN: Perhaps this paragraph should go to the childbirth section).

As mentioned above, prevention of the disease was slim during the sixteenth- and seventeenth-centuries. The treatments that were used seemed more shotty than anything, however, the common treatments that were used during those times were blood letting—“from 20 to 24 ounces taken at the beginning and, if necessary, this may be repeated”—[10] leeches that were applied to the abdomen, mercury treatment, and lastly mercury combined with opium treatments. [11] Eventually a theory was introduced that the disease was contracted because of the uncleanly doctor’s hands being previously used to perform autopsies on dead bodies. At this period, hospitals had not yet become the most hygienic institutions. It is not until the nineteenth century that the connection was made between bacterial infections and sanitary hands; eventually a “wash your hands” policy was adopted. [12]

References:

  1. ↑ Alexander Duke, “Puerperal Fever,” BR Med J., 3, No. 2 (Dec., 1910), 10.
  2. ↑ Fleetwood Churchill, “The Diseases of Females: Including Those of Pregnancy and Childbed,” HathiTrust Digital Library, (1847), 510.
  3. ↑ Marsha Urban, “Seventeenth Century Mother’s Advice Books” (Feb., 2006) 12.
  4. ↑ Urban, 11.
  5. ↑ Kirkus Service, “Katherine the Queen,” Kirkus Reviews, LXXVIII, No. 19 (1991), 8.
  6. ↑ Duke, 11.
  7. ↑ Urban, 13.
  8. ↑ Urban, 13.
  9. ↑ Urban, 13.
  10. ↑ Churchill, 513.
  11. ↑ Churchill, 513.
  12. ↑ Churchill, 540.
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