Table X. contains an abstract from Dr. Le Fort’s work of the statistics of 58 lying-in institutions in nearly every country of Europe, and extending in many cases over a considerable number of years. There is only one hospital (at Bourg) in which there was no death in 4 years, out of 461 deliveries.
There is one hospital (at Troyes), with a death-rate of 4 per 1,000 on 460 deliveries in 4 years.
There are two instances of death-rates of 7 per 1,000. There is one of 9, and there are two of 10 per 1,000.
In every other case the death-rates have exceeded these amounts, rising higher and higher in different institutions, until they culminate in a death-rate of no less than 140 per 1,000, at Strasburg, on a four years’ average among 556 deliveries. Le Fort’s data show a striking variation in the death-rates of the same hospitals in different years, as will presently be seen to be the case in hospitals in this country. There are instances in these foreign hospitals of the death-rates varying from 4 to 7–fold in different groups of years in the same hospital.
Le Fort’s data show that in lying-in hospitals in various countries and climates, scattered over nearly the whole of Europe, out of 888,312 deliveries there were no fewer than 30,394 deaths, giving an average death-rate of 34 per 1,000, a rate exceeding the high mortality which led to the discontinuance of our school for training midwifery nurses in King’s College Hospital.
| Table X.—Table Showing the Death-rate from all Causes amongst Women Delivered in Lying-in Hospitals. (Abstracted from Dr. Le Fort’s ‘Des Maternités.’) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maternity Hospitals | No. of Years of Observation | Deliveries | Deaths | Deaths per Thousand | |
| Vienna Maternité | 50 | 103,731 | 2,811 | 25 | |
| Students’ Clinique | 30 | 104,492 | 5,560 | 53 | |
| Midwives „ | 30 | 88,083 | 3,064 | 34 | |
| Académie Joséphine | 1 | 277 | 24 | 86 | |
| Prague | Maternité | 15 | 41,477 | 1,383 | 33 |
| Munich | „ | 4 | 4,064 | 86 | 21 |
| Göttingen | „ | 8 | 1,029 | 32 | 32 |
| Gratz | „ | 3 | 3,089 | 97 | 31 |
| Greifswald Clinique | 4 | 316 | 18 | 56 | |
| Bremen Hospital | 6 | 139 | 10 | 71 | |
| Halle Clinique | 1 | 102 | 3 | 29 | |
| Berlin Clinique de l’Université | 1 | 401 | 11 | 27 | |
| Frankfort-on-Main Maternité | 7 | 1,213 | 13 | 10 | |
| Leipzig | Ancienne „ | 46 | 5,137 | 89 | 17 |
| Nouvelle „ | 3 | 594 | 20 | 33 | |
| Pesth Clinique | 5 | 2,571 | 86 | 33 | |
| Moscow Maternité de la Maison des Enfans Trouvés | 11 | 11,556 | 230 | 19 | |
| Ditto | 10 | 16,721 | 436 | 26 | |
| Ditto | 10 | 27,759 | 776 | 28 | |
| St. Petersburg | Clinique de la Faculté | 6 | 376 | 34 | 90 |
| Hospital Kalinkin | 15 | 1,288 | 20 | 15 | |
| Institut des Sages | |||||
| Femmes | 15 | 8,036 | 238 | 29 | |
| Maternité des Enfans | |||||
| Trouvés | 15 | 16,011 | 825 | 51 | |
| Dublin Maternité | 58 | 84,390 | 875 | 10 | |
| Ditto | 7 | 21,867 | 309 | 14 | |
| Ditto | 5 | 12,885 | 198 | 15 | |
| Ditto | 7 | 16,391 | 158 | 9 | |
| Ditto | 7 | 13,167 | 224 | 17 | |
| Ditto | 7 | 13,699 | 179 | 13 | |
| Ditto | 7 | 13,748 | 163 | 11 | |
| London Lying-in Hospital | 28 | 5,883 | 172 | 29 | |
| Edinburgh Hospital | 1 | 277 | 3 | 10 | |
| Stuttgart „ | 1 | 424 | 3 | 7 | |
| Zurich Maternité | 1 | 200 | 20 | 100 | |
| Stockholm „ | 1 | 650 | 37 | 56 | |
| Göttenburg „ | 1 | 223 | 18 | 80 | |
| Lund „ | 1 | 33 | 2 | 60 | |
| Freiburg en Breisgau | 3 | 281 | 10 | 35 | |
| Jéna Clinique | 4 | 308 | 21 | 67 | |
| Dresden Maternité | 51 | 15,356 | 373 | 27 | |
| Paris Maternité | 8 | 15,307 | 610 | 39 | |
| Ditto | 10 | 23,484 | 1,114 | 47 | |
| Ditto | 10 | 25,895 | 1,293 | 49 | |
| Ditto | 10 | 26,538 | 1,125 | 42 | |
| Ditto | 10 | 34,776 | 1,458 | 41 | |
| Ditto | 10 | 25,094 | 1,298 | 51 | |
| Ditto | 5 | 9,886 | 1,226 | 124 | |
| Total for ditto | 63 | 160,704 | 8,124 | 56 | |
| Paris Clinique de la Faculté | 5 | 1,654 | 117 | 70 | |
| Ditto | 10 | 9,079 | 359 | 39 | |
| Ditto | 10 | 9,462 | 379 | 40 | |
| Ditto | 5 | 4,100 | 288 | 70 | |
| Total for ditto | 30 | 24,295 | 1,143 | 47 | |
| Paris, St. Antoine | 9 | 28 | 5 | 178 | |
| Ditto | 10 | 32 | 15 | 468 | |
| Ditto | 10 | 129 | 20 | 155 | |
| Ditto | 10 | 788 | 65 | 82 | |
| Ditto | 10 | 2,359 | 134 | 56 | |
| Ditto | 5 | 1,868 | 110 | 58 | |
| Total for ditto | 54 | 5,204 | 349 | 67 | |
| Paris, Hôtel Dieu | 8 | 833 | 36 | 43 | |
| Ditto | 10 | 658 | 34 | 51 | |
| Ditto | 10 | 1,757 | 81 | 46 | |
| Ditto | 10 | 2,338 | 17 | 7 | |
| Ditto | 10 | 3,012 | 106 | 35 | |
| Ditto | 10 | 11,744 | 325 | 27 | |
| Ditto | 5 | 4,972 | 232 | 46 | |
| Total for ditto | 63 | 25,314 | 831 | 32 | |
| Paris, St. Louis | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | |
| Ditto | 10 | 128 | 2 | 15 | |
| Ditto | 10 | 1,282 | 51 | 39 | |
| Ditto | 10 | 2,832 | 173 | 61 | |
| Ditto | 10 | 2,736 | 102 | 37 | |
| Ditto | 10 | 7,244 | 200 | 27 | |
| Ditto | 5 | 3,812 | 252 | 66 | |
| Total for ditto | 58 | 19,038 | 780 | 40 | |
| Paris, La Charité | 3 | 648 | 84 | 126 | |
| Lyons „ | 4 | 3,325 | 91 | 17 | |
| Hôtel Dieu | 4 | 2,016 | 33 | 16 | |
| Rouen Hôpital Général | 4 | 1,275 | 9 | 7 | |
| Bordeaux Maternité | 4 | 714 | 30 | 42 | |
| Lille | 4 | 683 | 25 | 35 | |
| Rheims | 4 | 646 | 15 | 23 | |
| Strasburg | 4 | 556 | 78 | 140 | |
| Grenoble | 4 | 554 | 20 | 36 | |
| Bordeaux, St. André | 4 | 547 | 36 | 65 | |
| St. Etienne | 4 | 515 | 8 | 15 | |
| Toulouse | 4 | 493 | 9 | 18 | |
| Bourg | 4 | 461 | 0 | 0 | |
| Troyes | 4 | 460 | 2 | 4 | |
| Marseilles | 4 | 444 | 16 | 36 | |
| Châteauroux | 4 | 423 | 20 | 47 | |
| Amiens | 4 | 396 | 5 | 12 | |
| Colmar | 4 | 396 | 26 | 65 | |
| Nantes | 4 | 340 | 17 | 50 | |
| Nancy | 4 | 320 | 9 | 28 | |
| Orleans | 4 | 301 | 3 | 9 | |
| Total for all hospitals | 888,312 | 30,394 | 34 | ||
The absolute loss of life in Parisian lying-in wards has been greater than in those of any other capital city.
This is clearly shown in the ‘Statistique médicale des Hôpitaux de Paris,’ kindly supplied to me by M. Husson, the Director of the General Administration of ‘Public Assistance’ at Paris, of whose many proofs of ability, activity, and benevolence, it is not here the place to speak. From this the following facts are abstracted. The death-rates are therein given for 12 hospitals receiving lying-in cases, only one of which, however, is a lying-in hospital (the ‘Maison d’accouchement’), and will be found in Tables XI., XII., XIII.
In 1861 the average death-rate in these establishments was no less than 95·1 per 1,000.
In 1862 it was 69·7 per 1,000.