And it may literally be said that the danger increases as the square of the number of in cases.
Lying-in ‘infection’ is a very good illustration of what ‘infection’ really means, since parturition is not infectious or ‘contagious.’
The excessive susceptibility of lying-in women to poisonous emanations, the excessively poisonous emanations from lying-in women—these constitute a hospital influence on lying-in cases brought together in institutions, second to no influence we know of exercised by the most ‘infectious’ or ‘contagious’ disease.
The death-rate is not much higher among women lying-in at home in large towns than in healthy districts. Therefore the agglomeration of cases together and want of management required to meet it must bear the blame.
As to floors, the well-laid polished floor is a sine quâ non in a lying-in institution, where, with every care, slops, blood, and the like, must frequently be spilt on the floor.
7. What is a healthy and well-lighted Delivery Ward?
There must be two separate delivery wards for each floor of the whole lying-in institution, so arranged and connected under cover that the lying-in women may be removed after delivery to their own ward. And for this purpose the corridors must admit of being warmed during winter, especially at night, so as to be of a tolerably equable temperature.
Unlimited hot and cold water laid on, day and night, W.C. sink, bath-sink, clean linen, must be close at hand.
In a pavilion hospital one single-bed ward should be attached to each delivery ward, for an exhausted case after delivery, till she is able to be moved to her own ward.
The delivery ward should be so lighted and arranged that it can be divided, by curtains only, into three if not four compartments.