Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
IV. Spread of the Doctrine During the Vienna Period
88 BRÜCKE-SCHMIDT Semmelweis devotes several pages (Ätiologie, p. 459) to the Schmidt incident, and it must be regretfully admitted that he is perhaps a little querulous and exacting, and not altogether fair. Brücke, after stating the case in favour of Semmelweis, had asked Schmidt whether in his experience of practice in the Charité he had met with anything in support of the doctrine of cadaveric infection. Schmidt replied to Brücke in a perfectly fair and friendly spirit. He described the arrangements of the Charité, which, as a general hospital, contained under one roof every conceivable kind of case of disease, and, as in midwifery work, especially attendance on a primipara, is a tedious business, the students were wont to move about from one department to another while waiting for the completion of natural labour. This practice of alternating between the poles of existence, between the cradle and the bier, between the labour-room and the dead-house, had given rise to certain relevant incidents. . . . Professor Schmidt is evidently anxious to go as far as he conscientiously can in support of the Semmelweis doctrine out of friendliness to Brücke, but he concludes : “ As I have said, I believe in the possibility (of cadaveric poison) and the experiences in Vienna are quite sufficient to make me exercise and require precautions, but I have no personal experience to record. This mode of infection may certainly be one of the many ways in which childbed fever is produced; the only way it certainly is not.” To these remarks Semmelweis makes a long and detailed reply, and falls foul of Schmidt, who evidently desired to be friendly : “If therefore Professor Schmidt has had no experience of his own to support my doctrine, the cause of that did not lie in Schmidt’s want of opportunity for observation, but because Schmidt does not possess the ability to make observations.” The explanation of this unjust acerbity comes in immediately after a reference to Virchow : it is to be remembered that
