Puerperal Fever - Victims

Victims

Elizabeth of York, the mother of Henry VIII of England, died of puerperal fever one week after giving birth to a daughter. Other significant victims include author Jean Webster, English queens Jane Seymour and Katherine Parr (both wives of Henry VIII), housekeeping authority Isabella Beeton, and Mary Wollstonecraft, author of Vindication of the Rights of Woman and mother of Frankenstein author Mary Shelley. Suzanne Barnard, mother of philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, contracted childbed fever after giving birth to him, and died nine days later. Her infant son was also in perilous health following the delivery; the adult Rousseau later wrote that "I came into the world with so few signs of life that little hope was entertained of preserving me". He was nursed back to health by an aunt. African-American poet Phillis Wheatley (1753-84) died of puerperal fever.