Gordon A (1795). A Treatise on the Epidemic Puerperal Fever of Aberdeen. London, England: G.G. and J. Robinson. pp. 63–64. On p. 63, Gordon recognized that puerperal fever was infectious: "But this disease seized such women only, as were visited, or delivered, by a practitioner, or taken care of by a nurse, who had previously attended patients affected with the disease. In short, I had evident proofs of its infectious nature, and that the infection was as readily communicated as that of smallpox, or measles, and operated more speedily than any other infection, with which I am acquainted." From p. 64: "It is a disagreeable declaration for me to mention, that I myself was the means of carrying the infection to a great number of women."
Watson (February 18, 1842). "Lectures on the principles and practice of physic: Diseases of the abdomen". The London Medical Gazette. 29: 801–808. From p. 806: "Whenever puerperal fever is rife, or when a practitioner has attended any one example of it, he should use most diligent ablution; he should even wash his hands with some disinfecting fluid, a weak solution of chlorine for instance: he should avoid going in the same dress to any other of his midwifery patients: in short, he should take all those precautions which, when the danger is understood, common sense will suggest, against his clothes or his body becoming a vehicle of contagion and death between one patient and another."
