Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
V. Life in Buda-Pesth
168 VIRCHOW Instruction in obstetrics like that of Virchow, who uttered his opinions on puerperal fever epidemics in an address at Berlin in 1858 without a word of protest from any quarter, such teaching is so absolutely bad that it ought to be suppressed by law. But why should the teaching of midwifery in Berlin not be bad when Professor Schmidt believes in a nosocomial atmosphere?” Professor Credé is an epidemicist, and in support of his theory in the Winter Semester of 1854-55 he sent out of 336 lying-in women 58 to other stations to die there. Credé’s transference to Leipzig did not change his opinions in any way : there he lost over 3 per cent, of patients from puerperal fever for three years running. ‘‘Professor E. Martin, of Berlin, shows, from opinions stated in the Berlin Obstetrical Society in 1858 as to the cause of puerperal peritonitis, that the “ puerperal sun ” which rose in Vienna in 1847 has not as yet lighted up his spirit.” It will be observed that the reference to E. Martin is conceived in the most forbearing terms ever used by Semmelweis, for, as we shall see, E. Martin was the most reasonable of opponents, and was among the first in North Germany to appreciate the importance of the Semmelweis Lehre. Virchow had not attacked the Semmelweis doctrine in any way : he had treated it with a disdainful silence while diligently spreading opinions about puerperal fever which Semmelweis believed to be erroneous and harmful. So great was the position of Virchow as an oracle on all subjects in the opinion of his countrymen, that the professors were simply shocked at the temerity of Semmelweis in criticising the pronouncements of their divinely gifted man. Semmelweis tackles the great man in a special article, “ Die puerperalen Thrombosen.” Virchow had stated the belief that the less sufficient the contraction of the uterus, and of the vessels in the neighbourhood of the uterus, the greater is the danger of the formation of physiological thrombosis, and of the
