Puerperal sepsis

Known also as childbed fever or puerperal sepsis. 

Puerperal sepsis (severe infection occurring at the time of childbirth) became widespread in the nineteenth century when home delivery was replaced by hospital delivery, fit 1843, Boston physician Oliver Wendell Holmes determined that the fever was carried from bed to bed on the unwashed hands of the physician, fri 1847, Hungarian doctor Ignaz Semmelweis came to the same conclusion. 

Puerperal Fever Disease caused by P-hemolytic streptococci, which are normal vaginal and respiratory microbiota that can be introduced during child delivery by medical personnel. Known also as Childbed Fever or Puerperal Sepsis. 

What is true of puerperal fever applies to acute streptococcal sepsis of other kinds. This most dangerous infection of all kinds of wound, from those sustained in battle to the trivial pricks and scratches which could once lead to septicemia, has lost its terrors.. ... 

Includes all deaths in childbirth caused by sepsis (puerperal fever) during 1883. Rate is measured as deaths per 1,000 live births. 

---