Some Observations on Seventy Years of Country Midwifery Practice

The communication which I venture to bring before you this evening has three objectives in view. First, to examine the statement frequently made and supported by statistics, that puerperal mortality is as high to-day as it was seventy years ago; second, to question the opinion, also widely held, that the bulk of this mortality is the result of instrumental and other interference with the course of labour; and third, to suggest that this matter of puerperal mortality might profitably be examined from a somewhat new standpoint to which I will finally direct your attention. The material from which any conclusions arrived at are drawn is the experience gained in a mixed small town and country practice from the end of " the forties " till the present day, of cases in all classes of society, from those in the county houses around to the tramps in the lodging-houses. Needless to say they are not the experience of one man. But they