It was the scourge of European hospitals in the 1800s, a dreaded infection that killed as many as one in five new mothers. The disease was just as feared in America, where hospitals were used less frequently for childbirth. No one knew what caused the illness, called puerperal fever, and many doctors did not believe it was contagious.
Puerperal fever is relatively rare today.
Medical science eventually identified the streptococci bacteria that cause it. By the 1930s, researchers had developed drugs that could cure the condition. There were no anesthetics to ease the pain of childbirth and no surgical options like Cesarean sections to handle complications. Without advanced drugs and sophisticated treatments, hospitals had little value except as quiet places to deliver babies. Consequently, they were mostly used by poor women.