Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
IV. Spread of the Doctrine During the Vienna Period
BEDNAR 89 Semmelweis was writing the JEtiologie nearly ten years after the correspondence referred to, and meanwhile he had not been well treated by Berlin, especially by Virchow. He was human in his resentment, and we may accept his well-founded resentment of Virchow’s rather unworthy behaviour as an extenuating circumstance. BEDNAR AND THE NEWBORN. Independent testimony in favour of the beneficent influence of the Semmelweis prophylaxis next came from an unexpected quarter. It was from Dr. Bednar, the chief Physician of the Foundling Hospital. When a woman confined in the Lying-in Hospital died, or if she could not suckle her child, the infant was taken just across the Alser-Strasse to the Foundling Hospital. Many of these newborn infants died of a disease indistinguishable from puerperal fever except in the genital sphere. Dr. Bednar, who had a large experien 'e of this disease, called it “ Sepsis of the Blood of the Newborn.” In the course of a monograph on the subject published in 1850, Dr. Bednar said: Cases of sepsis of the blood of the newborn have now become quite rare. For this we have to thank the discovery of Dr. Semmelweis, lately assistant in the First Obstetric Clinic, whose discovery has conferred such benefits. He was able fortunately to investigate and explain the cause and the means of prevention of puerperal fever, which formerly raged in such murderous fashion in the Lying-in Hospital.” Here then, apart from the fortunes of the Discovery of Semmelweis, is a reference to a now obsolete disease. Still it must be of some practical interest to keep in mind the possibility of doing harm to the infant of a patient suffering from puerperal sepsis, who still retains the capacity of secreting a little milk. What should be done with that milk ? We shall see that as late as 1862 Semmelweis wrote to the Editor of the Medical Times and Gazette to correct a
