Leake, J.  Practical Observations on the Child-Bed Fever (1772).

John Leake (1729-1792), English surgeon and midwife, made these observations while serving at the Westminster Lying-In Hospital, which he had founded.  His work shows the fatally unsanitary nature of hospital wards in the 18th century.  Also noteworthy is Leake's insistence that puerperal fever is contagious.

(Sources: Garrison & Morton; Dictionary of National Biography)