This description was part of a survey conducted in 1907 by the French doctor A. Duvigneau on childbirth practices in Huế, a city in central Vietnam. In his mission civilisatrice in Indochina, Dr. Duvigneau, as well as many other French physicians and anthropologists, was captivated by Vietnamese childbirth traditions and their associated medical and cultural features, many of which were unknown to the Western medical community. Vietnamese birthing customs soon became an object of scrutiny and research as French physicians and anthropologists conducted official surveys on the pathology and ethnology of Vietnamese people. As military conflict wound down in the late 1880s, research on the local milieu and people was deemed crucial to the ensuing pacification campaigns. French interest in indigenous practices of birthing and childrearing also stemmed from an increased curiosity in the metropole about the peoples of the Far East, whose exotic culture and lifestyle seemed to amaze French audiences. The fascination with Vietnamese traditions, however, turned into a grave concern about the high infant mortality rates, which, in places such as Saigon, rose to 27.2 percent (1905) of newborns and 42.6 percent (1904) of infants under one year old. Umbilical tetanus, a deadly disease caused by the infection of the cord stump, was responsible for more than 40 percent of fatal cases.