PNEUMONIA ASSOCIATED WITH PREGNANCY *

PNEUMONIA is one of the rare complications of pregnancy. Among about 15,000 obstetrical patients in the Lying-in Hospital during the past five and one-half years pneumonia has been seen only 15 times during the period of gestation. The marked seasonal and other variations in the nat-ural course of this infection make it extremely difficult to compare the dis-ease occurring in pregnant and non-pregnant women. Most of our knowl-edge is therefore based on what we know about pneumonia as an infectious disease and on the effect of infectious diseases on pregnancy. For the present report the larger series of cases of pneumonia during pregnancy will be reviewed and the cases seen in the clinic will be analyzed. In 1905 Ransdell1 saw two cases and carefully reviewed the literature on the subject for the previous 200 years. From the German, French, Italian, and English he was able to collect 350 cases. No distinction was made between broncho- and lobar varieties. During the first six calendar months of gestation 144 cases were reported of which 22 per cent died an