|Classification and external resources| Puerperal fever or
childbed fever, is a bacterial infection contracted by women
during childbirth or miscarriage. It can develop into puerperal
sepsis, which is a serious form of septicaemia. If untreated, it
is often fatal. "The Doctor's Plague"  From the 1600s through
the mid to late 1800s, the majority of childbed fever cases were
caused by the doctors themselves. With no knowledge of germs,
doctors did not believe hand washing was needed. Statements like
that of Dr. Charles Meigs, a leading obstetrician and teacher
from Philadelphia, were the attitude of the time: “Doctors are
gentlemen, and gentlemen’s hands are clean.” In the 1800s Dr.
Ignaz Semmelweis noticed that women giving birth at home had a
much lower incidence of childbed fever than those giving birth
in the doctor's maternity ward. His investigation discovered
that washing hands with an antiseptic solution before a delivery
reduced childbed fever fatalities by 90%. Publication of his
findings was not well